






























WINTER SPORTS VERSE 


Uniform with This Volume 
$ 1.50 each 


VERSE OF THE OPEN SERIES 

CHOSEN BT 

WILLIAMS HAYNES 

AND 

JAMES LeROY HARRISON 

CAMP-FIRE VERSE 

INTRODUCTION BY 
STEWART EDWARD WHITE 

FISHERMAN’S VERSE 

INTRODUCTION BY 
HENRY VAN DYKE 

WINTER SPORTS VERSE 

INTRODUCTION BY 
WALTER PRICHARD EATON 


/ 

WINTER SPORTS VERSE 


CHOSEN BY 

WILLIAMS HAYNES 

>v 

AND 

JOSEPH LeROY HARRISON 


WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

WALTER PRICHARD EATON / 



NEW YORK 

DUFFIELD AND COMPANY 
I 9 I 9 




Copyright, 1919. by 
Duffield and Company 


JAN 31 1920 



3 

©CI.A559 6 06' 


To 

MELVIL DEWEY 
of the Lake Placid Club 
“trail-breaker” through Adirondack snows 
for all true winter sportsmen 


WINTER 

What did Winter mutter? 

O ye frozen ponds, 

Ring, as on the flying skate 
Rapid couples, maid and mate, 

Skim in cosy bonds ! 

Bless me, what a scarlet nose 
Comes with Robin home from school ! 
How his pilot jacket shows 
Ghosts of snowballs on the wool ! 

Here are drifts beside the dcor. 

Flakes that melt on Laura’s face. 
Shameless hurricanes that roar 
Anger into ev’ry place ! 

Here’s a splendid pavement-slide, 

Made by pourings from the jugs; 

Even babies take a pride, 

Helping with their china mugs 1 
Now’s the hour when chestnuts roast, 
Now for father’s promised ghost! 
Children, Winter’s come anew — 

Love him, for he worships you ! 
Winter’s come! 


Norman Gale 


INTRODUCTION 


Poetry, said Wordsworth, in a famous definition, 
is emotion remembered in tranquility. But the 
tranquility which follows an emotional experience 
or adventure is usually the tranquility of intense 
reflection. The tranquility which follows a physi- 
cal experience, however emotionally charged with 
pleasure, is generally the tranquility of bodily re- 
laxation and well-being. Hence, perhaps, the un- 
doubted fact that the verses in this anthology are 
not, on the whole, so subtle nor so rapturously lyric 
nor so passionate nor disturbingly eloquent as 
would be a collection, let us say, of poems about 
love. No coquette, to be sure, not the fascinating 
Beatrice herself, can provide more excitement and 
variety, and in a shorter space of time, than a pair 
of skis on a mountain side. But there is a certain 
difference in quality ; and the ski runner has always 
a snowdrift, soft as oblivion, to land in. Remem- 
bering in tranquility the emotion of that descent, 
the ski runner is more likely to burst into laughter 
than into poetry. Your true poet comes pensive 
from his spiritual adventure, and a pallid com- 
plexion traditionally marks the visitation of the 


1 


11 


INTRODUCTION 


muse. Your devotee of winter sports comes noisily 
from his frozen out-of-doors to the warmth of the 
fire, and his face glows ruddy. The fact of the 
matter is, he is quite too healthy to be poetic ! 

Why, then, an anthology of verses about winter 
sports, even if William Wordsworth did skate, and 
Amy Lowell go sleigh riding, and Bobby Burns 
curl, by way of proving that what we have just 
said doesn’t have to be true? I can only answer 
that such an anthology, in the first place, is prob- 
ably not compiled for Serious Students of English 
Prosody, but for men and women who love the 
hardy, outdoor winter sports so well that they 
would welcome a collection of winter-sport verses ; 
and, in the second place, speaking quite seriously, 
such an anthology does show, in addition to a cer- 
tain number of poems obviously the record of a 
poetic emotional experience, a very considerable 
number of verses quite as obviously the spontane- 
ous record of a cheery, healthful, zestful, good time, 
which caused the participants to make, at the least, 
a joyful noise. So cheery, so zestful, have been 
these good times, so honestly have the participants 
endeavored to record them in jovial measures, that 
even an unfortunate person who has never shot 
down the Montreal toboggan slide nor panted after 
a hockey puck nor swept a ringing circle on his 
outer edge nor herring-boned up a steel hillside on 


INTRODUCTION 


iii 

skis, can hardly fail to catch something of the in- 
fectious health that underlies them. The rest of 
us cannot be critical, the haze of reminiscence rises 
too thickly about us from the pages — or is it blown 
snow powder? 

When the Dartmouth Outing Club is making one 
of its long hikes, from cabin to cabin through the 
forests and over the glittering, naked expanses of 
the White Mountains, and when the members reach 
the Moosilauke hut, and are “too near pipped to 
talk,” you will note that they do not resent the 
absence of Ysaye to play them Bach; they vastly 
prefer “Ernie and his old harmonicaw.” I like 
Dryden’s Song for St. Cecelia’s Day, but I also like 
the nameless Dartmouth student’s song to Ernie and 
his old harmonicaw. I like it because it brings to 
my mind with great vividness the carefree, sturdy, 
laughing line of ski-clad boys following the trail 
breaker through the New Hampshire snows, per- 
forming feats that require real hardiness for the 
pure love of exercise and of the vast freedom of 
the mountains ; and because, behind the boys, even 
as they snuggle in their shelters and pile the wood 
on the fire, I glimpse the amethyst-tinted crystal 
battlements of Moosilauke or Washington, and above 
the wail of Ernie’s harmonicaw I hear the sigh and 
surge of the wind come down Jobildunc Ravine. 

It was this same Dartmouth Outing Club which 


IV 


INTRODUCTION 


once undertook to ascend Mount Washington in a 
blizzard, or, rather, four members, roped together, 
undertook the feat. The snow was so thick that 
none of the four could see the others, nor hear 
them, either. At the Halfway House the rear man 
braced his feet and hauled the other three down to 
him, communicating at close quarters his decision 
to turn back. As he was the heaviest member of 
the party, his decision carried weight, as it were. 
There are certain elements of balladry here, surely, 
though Ernie will have to desert the “harmonicaw” 
for some instrument which leaves his lips unem- 
ployed, if he is to be the club troubadour! 

But, jovial and ruddy as winter sports are, they 
have a side which is more or less lacking in the 
sports of summer, the competitive sports, at any 
rate. They have a lonely side, a still, reflective 
side, which, for some of us, adds immeasurably to 
their charm. Who, for example, not only in im- 
pressionable boyhood but in later years, has not 
known the experience described by Charles G. D. 
Roberts in his poem, “The Skater”? You move 
away from the throng, under the cold winter moon, 
drawn by some quite irresistible impulse, and glide 
far down the pond, or over the black ice of the 
winding river, between wooded banks. The utter 
stillness of the winter night enfolds you, broken 
only by the ring and crunch of your own runners, 


INTRODUCTION 


v 


and now and then a long-drawn, booming ice crack. 
And suddenly there is mystery and terror under the 
ice below you, in the shadowy woods about you, a 
delicious terror, a cold mystery, that send you back 
on rapid runners till the shouts of your fellows are 
heard again. What snowshoe tramper, too, has 
broken trail through new snow, into the depths of 
the powdered forest, walking over buried fences and 
transformed fields at first, and then plunging in 
under groined crystal arches, without feeling that 
he was somehow in another world, entering a won- 
derful, hushed cathedral, and almost bowed in wor- 
ship of the storm god and the tinting sun? What 
snowshoe tramper, again, has crossed other tracks 
in the deep woods without something of the thrill 
of Crusoe, or even turned back at day’s end over 
his own tracks, to welcome the broken trail and 
glow with an odd warmth as if his own shadow 
self were welcoming him ? When the ill-fated Scott 
party had almost reached the South Pole they came 
suddenly, there on the virgin snows, at the peak of 
the world, hundreds and hundreds of miles from 
human camp, upon the tracks of skis ! Just that, and 
no more, but the tracks spelled “Nansen” — they 
spelled defeat in the race for the pole. I have often 
thought of that little party, on the Antarctic plateau, 
amid solitude of eternal winter, looking down 
at those tracks, and I have wondered if any scene 


VI 


INTRODUCTION 


could be more strange and more poignant. A grim, 
stern sport they were engaged in ? Yes — but a sport, 
none the less. Only the purest, finest spirit of sport 
can carry men to the summit of high mountains, to 
the depths of great jungles, to the frozen poles. 

There is, too, a peculiar homesickness known 
only to those who have followed the frosty way. 
You will find it voiced in Frank Lillie Pollock’s 
poem, “The Lost Trail.” The vast silence of snow 
spaces, the obliteration of the more familiar aspects 
of the world, the delicious locomotion of skis or 
the steady plod-plod of snowshoes, the loneliness, 
the freedom, the exceeding great benefaction of 
fire, the sudden aroma of tea and bacon, all these 
things combine to haunt the memory, and a man 
does not need, even, to have been a north woods- 
man to feel and understand. In my own New Eng- 
land township I go out over the mountain, mile 
after mile through a forest tracked only by the deer, 
the rabbits, the foxes, and now and then a wild- 
cat; and when, in town, I see a new fall of snow 
turning to dirty slush in Madison Square a great 
longing suddenly seizes me to rush away, back to 
my skis or snowshoes, back to the chill, silent for- 
ests that clothe my mountain, where the snow lies 
deep and soft and clean — so blessedly clean ! 

In one respect I find this anthology sadly deficient. 
There seems to be no poem in it about chopping 


INTRODUCTION vii 

wood in winter, preferably up a mountain side 
where each new-fallen tree opens a vista across the 
white valley to the far wall of amethyst hills. Why 
has no poet celebrated this joyous pastime? Chop- 
ping wood is not merely utilitarian — it is a glorious 
sport as well. The right swing and accurate stroke 
of an ax gives you all the pleasure of a cleanly exe- 
cuted drive or full cleek shot, combined with the 
muscular thrill of a tremendous smash in tennis. 
And the ultimate destination of the wood, too, when 
the sledges have taken it down the mountain — the 
wide, cheerful fireplaces of home — does that not 
make it a sport? After all, the end of every ski 
run, of every snowshoe tramp, of all the glorious, 
brisk, tingling sports of winter, is the roaring hearth, 
the home cheer. Though home be but a cabin or a 
bark lean-to, the wallowing flames are warmth and 
comfort and security — and those things are home. 
So, although they be icy, the sports of winter are 
mellow, too; they combine hardihood with relaxa- 
tion, both in rich degree. I suspect that for us 
Americans they have only just begun to find their 
rightful place in our literature. 

Walter Prichard Eaton 
Twin Fires, Sheffield, Massachusetts 
































































t 












PREFACE 


This book, like its companion volume, “Camp- 
Fire Verse,” is a pioneer — the first collection of 
poems of the various winter sports. The task of 
its compilation has been principally a search for ma- 
terial, and in this respect at least it has differed 
absolutely from its immediate predecessor in this 
“Verse of the Open Series, ,, for it was necessary to 
discard four poems for one included in “Fisherman’s 
Verse.” 

Winter sports — as organized, recognized sports 
— are comparatively few. Skiis were referred to by 
Procopius in the sixth century, and the earliest 
Jesuit fathers described the snowshoes of the Cana- 
dian Indians ; but it is only recently that the ancient 
utilitarian purposes of both skiis and snowshoes 
have been adopted to the uses of the most rugged 
and most exhilarating of all out-of-door pastimes. 
Our Canadian neighbors discovered before we did 
the good fun that one who hibernates misses, and 
their carnivals at Montreal and Quebec were famous 
long before we learned to pay due homage to the Ice 
King on his royal preserves at Lake Placid, St. 
Paul, Saranac, Hanover. Now, however, hundreds 


X 


PREFACE 


of Americans are each winter discovering for them- 
selves that fond memories of “belly whoppers” 
down the schoolhouse hill pale before the thrilling 
realities of the ski, toboggan, and ice-boat. 

Laurence Perry, in a most interesting magazine 
article on winter sports in American colleges, has 
said: “There is poetry in the winter hills that 
grips; a lure that once felt is irresistible.” Out of 
these materials many followers of the winter sports 
have made this book, for like its companion volumes, 
this is an anthology of the verse of sport by the 
men of the sport. These winter sports are today 
making their own traditions and have yet to estab- 
lish that foundation upon which so much of the 
best sporting verse rests. Accordingly, this collec- 
tion has of necessity its definite short-comings. It 
is our hope, however, that its publication will help 
to crystalize the spirit of the winter sportsman and 
by describing vividly the keen pleasures that are 
his, will win new devotees to winter sports. 

For their courteous permission to reprint in this 
book copyrighted poems, we gratefully acknowledge 
our indebtedness to the following authors, maga- 
zines, and publishers: 

The Century Co. and Ernest Thompson Seton for 
“Hunters” from “Woodmyth and Fable” (1903). 

Houghton, Mifflin Co., for Trowbridge's “Mid- 
winter,” Stedman’s “Country Sleighing,” Aldrich's 
“Frost Work” and Cheney's “Snowflakes.” 


PREFACE 


xi 


Charles Scribner’s Sons for Josiah Gilbert Hol- 
land’s “A Winter Picture” from “Bitter Sweet.” 

G. P. Putnam’s Sons for Drummond’s “The 
Voyageur” (1908) and Wallace Coburn’s “Wolf 
Hunt” from “Rhymes from a Round-up Camp” 

(1903)- 

Macmillan Co. and Miss Amy Lowell for her “A 
Winter Ride.” 

Duffield and Co. for the poem by Richard Hovey 
from “Along the Trail.” 

Barse & Hopkins for “Men of the High North” 
from “Ballads of the Cheechako” by Robert W. 
Service. 

The Atlantic Monthly for Frank Lillie Pollock’s 
“Lost Trail.” 

The Century for Edwin L. Sabin’s “The Clipper 
Sled.” 

Poetry for Paul F. Sifton’s “Wolverine Winter.” 

The Nation for Bliss Carmen’s “Winter Scene.” 

Munsey’s Magazine for Douglas Hemmingway’s 
“Proposal on Ice.” 

Life for Frank R. Batchelder’s “In Snow Time.” 

The Canadian Magazine for Bernard Freeman 
Trotter’s “Winter Nocturne.” 

The Canadian Monthly for Mrs. C. P. Traill’s 
“Winter Song of the Sleigh.” 

The Overland Magazine for Harry Coswell’s 
“Winter Folk’s Song.” 

Outing for Alice Ward Bailey’s “Ice Boat”; 


PREFACE 


xii 

Beatrice Harlowe’s “A Winter Snow Tramp”; 
Charles Gordon Rogers’ “Song of the Ice” and 
“Skating Song”; C. Turner’s “A Northern Win- 
ter’s Welcome” and Theodore Roberts’ “Winter 
Camp.” 

Forest and Stream for Robert Thorne New- 
berry’s “Rondeau: In Winter Days.” 

Hunter-Trader-Trapper for George Weldon’s 
“Northern Trapper’s Trail” and Clyde Edwin 
Tuck’s “Winter in the Bitter Roots.” 

The Amherst Literary Weekly for “Skating Hath 
Charms” by H. H. 

The ( Montreal ) Gazette for John Reade’s “Win- 
ter Carnival.” 

Arthur Guiterman for “A Skater’s Valentine.” 

Samuel M. Baylis for “Fur King,” “The Birth of 
the Snowshoe” and “Gather Round All Ye Good 
men.” 

William Edward Baubie for “The Race at Petit 
Cote.” 

Adolphine Fletcher Terry for her brother, John 
Gould Fletcher, for his poem “Snow.” 

Horace Howard Furness, Jr., for “Skating 
Song.” 

Clinton Scollard for “Skating,” “The Christmas 
Hunter” and “The Yule Log.” 

Duncan C. Scott for “Winter Song.” 

Isaac R. Pennypacker for “The Snowshoe Trail.” 

L. A. Lafleur for “The Spirit of the Carnival,” 


PREFACE 


xiii 

which has been revised and in part rewritten espe- 
cially for this volume. 

Andrew F. Underhill for “Lift the Sled Along,” 
written especially for this volume and never before 
published. 

To Walter Prichard Eaton our thanks are due 
not only for his poem “Skis” (from “Echoes and 
Realities,” published by George H. Doran, New 
York, 1918), but especially for the Introduction 
which he has written for this book. 

Williams Haynes 
Joseph Le Roy Harrison 

Northampton, Mass. 

September 5, 1919. 




CONTENTS 


AUTHOR 

Anonymous 

A Song of the Ski 

Dartmouth’s Winter Camps 

Hockey 

Jingle Bells 

Skating Hath Charms 

Ski-Song of the Braemar Postman 

Snow Shoe Tramp 

The Skater’s Song 

The Ski-Runner 

Trackin’ Rabbits . 

Allison, William Talbot 

Ships of the North 

Bailey, Alice Ward 

The Iceboat 

Baylis, Samuel M. 

Gather round, all ye good men and true . . , 

Tally-ho 

The Birth of the Snowshoe 

The Fur King 

Baubie, William Edward 

The Race at Petit Cote 

Baynes, O’Hara 

The Scene Lends Its Aid 

Bjornson, Bjornstjerne 

The Ski-Journey 

Bridges, Robert 

Winter 

Burns, Robert 

A Curler’s Elegy 

A Winter Night 

Buzzard, C. N. 

The Lady of Snows 

Campion, Thomas 

Winter Nights 


PAGE 


212 

27 


42 

150 

185 

200 

65 


242 

91 

180 


101 


37 

199 

10 

49 

220 

167 

33 

152 

249 

36 

83 

192 

134 


XVI 


CONTENTS 


AUTHOR 

Carleton, Will 

Coasting Down the Hill . 
Carman, Bliss 

The Winter Scene . . . 

Cawein, Madison 

The Daughter of the Snow 
The White Evening . . 

Clarke, George Herbert 
Skater and Wolves . 

Coburn, Wallace David 

The Wolf Hunt .... 
Coll, Aloysius 

Christmas in the Forest . 
Dibdin, Charles 

The Skaiter’s March . . 

Drummond, William Henry 
The Old Pine Tree . 

The Voyageur . . . 

Doyle, Joseph Nevin 

The Snowshoer’s Song 
Duncan, Henry 

Curling Song .... 
Eaton, Walter Prichard 

Skis 

Fiske, Horace Spencer 

Skater’s Song at Night . 
Toboggan Song . . . 

Winter Speeding . . . 

Friedlaender, V. H. 

To My Hockey Stick . . 

Furness, Jr., H. H. 

Skating Song .... 
Gale, Norman 

Wintertime 

Gandy, H. 

Lost Spirits 

White Worlds .... 
Gray, David 

From the “Luggie” . . . 

Griscom, Arthur 

Skating Song .... 
The Sleigh Ride .... 


PAGE 

76 

196 

176 

233 

60 

118 

218 

56 

121 

130 

98 

114 

1 7 

94 

88 

173 

67 

144 

. vi 

207 

186 

133 

92 

217 


CONTENTS 


XVII 


AUTHOR PAGE 

Guiterman, Arthur 

A Skater’s Valentine 90 

Hall, Thomas Winthrop 

Teaching a Girl to Skate no 

Harlowe, Beatrice 

A Snow-Shoe Tramp 19 

Hawkes, Clarence 

Bilin’ Sap 147 

Hogg, James 

The Jolly Curlers 61 

Hovey, Richard 

Hanover Winter Song 32 

Howitt, William 

The Northern Seas 223 

Johnson, Samuel 

O’er Crackling Ice 97 

Keene, John Harrington 

Ice-fishing in Winter 40 

Kernahan, Coulson 

Of Skating 117 

With Good Steel Ringing 34 

Lampman, Archibald 

A Forest Path in Winter 215 

Winter Uplands 124 

Lampman, Walter 

Winter Recalled 243 

Leach, Grace W. 

The Skaters 179 

Lefevre, Lily Alice 

The Spirit of the Carnival 235 

Leprohon, Mrs. J. L. 

Winter in Canada 209 

Lighthall, W. D. 

All hail to a Night 135 

Liston, James K. 

Songs of the Canadian Winter 136 

Lowell, Amy 

A Winter Ride 16 

Macleod, Norman 

Curling Song 79 

Martin, George 

A Night in the Skating Rink 201 

Montreal Carnival Sports 158 


XV111 


CONTENTS 


AUTHOR PAGE 

McDuffee, Franklin 

On to Cube 231 

McLellan, Isaac 

Moose-Hunting in Winter 204 

Pickerel-Fishing through the Ice 182 

The Winter Hunters 55 

Winter Sports 247 

Mighels, Philip Verrill 

She Skates Alone 1 13 

Painter, Orrin Chalfont 

Sleighing 62 

Peabody, Ephraim 

The Skater’s Song 95 

Peck, Samuel Mintum 

The Skater Belle 69 

Pennypacker, Isaac Rusling 

The Snow-Shoe Trail 102 

Percival, James Gates 

Skating 53 

Pollock, Frank Lillie 

The Lost Trail 63 

Potter, David 

A Skating Song 189 

Potter, Jr., E. C. 

That Hockey Game 126 

Read, Thomas Buchanan 

Song of the Chamois Hunter 21 

Riley, James Whitecomb 

The Hoodoo 31 

Roberts, Charles G. D. 

The Skater 25 

Roberts, Theodore 

The Shooting of the Moose 191 

The Snowshoer in 

The Winter Camp 12 

Rogers, Charles Gordon 

Skating Song 99 

The Skaters 141 

Sabin, Edwin L. 

The Clipper Sled 85 

Sandys, Edward W. 

Over the Ice 194 


CONTENTS 


xix 


AUTHOR PAGE 

Scollard, Clinton 

The Christmas Hunter 165 

The Yule-Log 214 

Twelfth Night Song 75 

Scott, Walter 

Christmas in the Olden Time 145 

Service, Robert W. 

Men of the High North 14 

Seton, Ernest Thompson 

The Hunters . . . 46 

Shanly, Charles Dawson 

The Walker of the Snow 70 

Shakespeare, William 

Wintertime 30 

Sherman, Frank Dempster 

Song for Winter 74 

Shoshone 

The Winter Camp Fire 58 

Sidey, James A. 

The Gude Gaun Game o’ Curling 44 

Sifton, Paul F. 

Wolverine Winter 187 

Smith, William Wye 

Canadian Winter Song 225 

Stedman, Edmund Clarence 

Country Sleighing 23 

Stein, Orth Harper 

The Skater 87 

Stuart, John Lowry 

Skating 81 

Swinburne, J. 

Ski Chanty 229 

Thomson, James 

Winter Abroad 216 

Traill, C. P. 

A Winter Song for the Sleigh 143 

Trotter, Bernard Freeman 

Winter Nocturne 125 

• Turner, C. 

A Northern Winter’s Welcome 8 

Underhill, Andrew F. 

Lift the Sled Along 


3 


XX 


CONTENTS 


AUTHOR PAGE 

Usher, John 

The Channel-Stane 38 

Vinton, J. D. 

Sleigh-Ride Song 70 

Warburton, Cora Isabel 

Skating Song . . . . 219 

Weir, Arthur 

Snowshoeing Song 128 

Weldon, George 

A Northern Trapper’s Trail 175 

Wordsworth, William 

Skating 156 


WINTER SPORTS VERSE 









THE LASH OF THE NORTHLAND 

Where the rafters of the world-roof fade beneath 
the Northern Light, 

And the icy air smites shivering o'er the floes ; 

Where the bleak half-year of sun flees the black 
half-year of night, 

And the stars eternal stab the lifeless snows : 

There lies the land that's God's own land — the land 
of frozen sea, 

The land that lures the heart that brooks no sway. 

And the lubber has no portion in its heritage with 
me; 

For it's men, red-blooded men, that tread the 
way. 

And it's, Lash your team of huskies! 

And it's, Lift the sled along! 

And it’s, Climb the frozen hummocks where the 
wind is biting strong! 

And it’s, Fight your way through blizzard 

With the cold a-grip your gizzard! 

And it’s, Push for the top of the world, boys! 

3 


4 THE LASH OF THE NORTHLAND 


Oh, the cliffs frown bleak and sullen on the tide of 
Melville Sound, 

Where the glaciers topple roaring to the deep; 

And the stately castled bergs in procession sail 
around, 

And the howling wind swings wider in its sweep. 

And the dogs’ heads now are drooping at the telling, 
killing pace, 

And our breath comes hard and frozen on the 
gale. 

Lord ! it’s never stop or listen but it’s buckle to the 
race! 

For we’re men, red-blooded men, who break the 
trail. 

And it's. Lash your team of huskies! 

And it’s, Lift the sled along ! 

And it's. Climb the frozen hummocks where the 
wind is biting strong ! 

And it’s, Fight your way through blizzard 

With the cold agrip your gizzard! 

And it’s, Push for the top of the world, boys! 

There’s a white bear at the headland ; there’s a wal- 
rus on the floe ; 

And the seals lie shining sleek beneath the sun. 

There’s a monster blubber whale — God ! you see him 
slosh and blow ! — 

And there’s hunger at the trigger of your gun. 


THE LASH OF THE NORTHLAND 5 

And the death-bolt, through the silence of the still, 
ghost-sheeted air, 

Leaps forth in sudden burst of lurid flame. 

Ho! there's meat for them that take it — for dog 
and you a share. 

Ye are men, red-blooded men, who play the game. 

And it's, Lash your team of huskies! 

And it's, Lift the sled along ! 

And it's, Climb the frozen hummocks where the 
wind is biting strong! 

And if s, Fight your way through blizzard 

With the cold agrip your gizzard! 

And ifs, Push for the top of the world, boys! 

Where the swirling, endless snow-drifts bar the 
reaches to the Pole, 

And the thundering ice piles up at Baffin's Bay, 

From Spitzbergen to Ungava there are tasks to 
break the soul 

Of the scum who give scant service for their pay. 

There's no berth for human slackers with a grouch 
for shortened hours, 

Where the sleet comes blown white-heated in its 
wrath. 

Tis a full day’s grilling job near a white-faced 
death that lowers : 

And it's men, red-blooded men, who break the 
path. 


6 THE LASH OF THE NORTHLAND 

And it's, Lash your team of huskies! 

And it's, Lift the sled along! 

And it’s, Climb the frozen hummocks where the 
wind is biting strong! 

And it's, Fight your way through blizzard 

With the cold agrip your gizzard! 

And it’s. Push for the top of the world, boys! 

There are grim, long days of silence in the sun’s 
white glistening glare, 

E’er your trek of frozen hours it is done. 

And there’s sleep where you can take it, with a meal 
of scanty fare, 

Till the next far goal of latitude is won. 

And, whether man or coward, you must meet the 
test of fate — 

And it searches to the soul of all that’s You ! 

At the North life shifts no burdens to the shoulders 
of the State, 

Where’s it’s men, red-blooded men, who see it 
through. 

And it’s, Lash your team of huskies! 

And it’s, Lift the sled along! 

And it’s, Climb the frozen hummocks where the 
wind is biting strong ! 

And it’s, Fight your way through blizzard, 

With the cold agrip your gizzard! 

And it’s, Push for the top of the world, boys! 


THE LASH OF THE NORTHLAND 7 

In the dun, long night of winter there are thoughts 
that search your soul 

Through the leaden hours of waiting for the 
light. 

Men, O men we left behind us, ye are striving to- 
wards a goal — 

God grant that ye be piloted aright ! 

From the stern North came man’s freedom, as the 
meed of duty done ; 

Shall ye sell it for a promise free of pain ? 

Shall ye scorn the price of payment for the prizes 
to be won? 

Shall your sires, red-blooded men, have striven 
in vain? 

No! — Then lash your team of Huskies! 

Come , lift the sled along! 

And climb life's frozen hummocks where the 
wind is biting strong! 

And fight your way there, voicing 

The old, stern creed, rejoicing! 

And push for a man's true world, boys! 

Andrew F. Underhill 


A NORTHERN WINTER’S WELCOME 


Hurrah for the ski ! and the taut snowshoe 
And the swift skate’s shrill refrain 1 
When the world’s enwrapped in it’s mantle new 
And winter awakes again ! 

I laugh as I see him cover the wolds 
With a fair soft pall of white, 

And rejoice at the drifting, swirling folds 
That bury them out of sight. 

For the wattled shoe will come by its own, 

And so will the speeding ski; 

Now the white paved track has at last been sown 
Where the Mercury-footed flee 

Up the hillside steeep and the graded slopes, 

And cheerily bound away, 

With spring as light as the antelope’s 
Or sprite’s or storied fay. 

With their limbs bent lithe and their hearts right 
blithe, 

As poised in flight in space, 

On the flashing ski, in a curving line 
They speed their aerial race. 

8 


A NORTHERN WINTER'S WELCOME 9 


Or the vale they skim and the mount they scale 
With the snowshoe's magic glide, 

And the wind outrun and the storm outsail, 

With strong and swishing stride. 

Then hail to the frost! and the Northern king! 

And hail to their reign benign ! 

May the snowshoe's swing and the keen skate's ring 
Be heard till the end of time ! 

For they bring good health, and sturdiest strength, 
And healing's on their wings. 

And the frame will glow, and the blood swift flow 
Wherever their music sings. 


C. Turner 


TALLY-HO 


I sing you a song to-night, my lads, 

A song of the frost and snow; 

Of the sport so rare and the bracing air 
That quicken the pulse’s flow! 

Others may sing of the budding spring, 

Or the autumn’s mellow glow, 

But the winter for me with its life so free 
And the tramps through the drifting snow. 

Let us away where the breezes play, 
Over the glittering snow; 

Merrily sing, till the echoes ring 
To the snowshoers* “Tally-ho!” 

Then weave me a garland gay, my lads, 
Bright holly and fair mistletoe; 

To Winter we’ll sing, and crown him King, 
Ermine-wrapped in a mantle of snow. 

With the rod and the gun we now have done, 
The crosse and the oar may go ; 

But the snow-shoe to me a friend shall be, 

As we tramp o’er the sparkling snow. 


TALLY-HO 


ii 


I give you a toast to-night, my lads, 

To pledge you wherever you go: 

“Our Canada fair and the lads who wear 
The snow-shoe !” Hurrah — Tally-ho ! 

May her Knights of the Shoe to their country be 
true, 

At her call ever ready to go, 

And her honor defend ! Ay ! e’en though the end 
Be a grave ’neath the shrouding snow ! 

Samuel M. Baylis 


THE WINTER CAMP 

The walls of log are thick and stout; 

The rugged hearth is wide and gray; 
The roof will keep the thin winds out — 
The fire will chase the frosts away; 
While we take comfort merrilee, 
And spin brave yarns above the tea. 

Lacobie tells of caribou 
And long, gray wolves, in Labrador; 
And Stanley sings the red canoe; 

And Dick expounds his Micmac lore; 
While I talk glibly as I can, 

With one eye on the frying pan. 

We talk of deeds in field and wood, 

Of fir-clad hills and miles of spruce — 
The alder-swamps* gray solitude — 

The trampled shelter of the moose; 
And when the bacon is fried brown 

We let the conversation down. 

12 


THE WINTER CAMP 


13 


Our snowshoes stand against the wall — 
They need good rest, for they have gone 
Down forest trails, where shy beasts call — 
A giant journey since the dawn. 

I wonder if they ever tire 

And want to lounge about the fire? 

What matters it tho* winds blow chill 
And foot the drifts about our door, 
When we have fire-light, and good-will, 
And bear-skins strewn upon the floor, 
And bacon , and a pot of tea 
To make the time go merrilee? 

Theodore Roberts 


MEN OF THE HIGH NORTH 


Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing; 

Islands of opal float on silver seas; 

Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing; 

Pale ports of amber, golden argosies. 

Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing ; 

Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky; 
Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing, 

Like threaded quicksilver, gleams to the eye. 

Men of the High North, you who have known it; 

You in whose hearts its splendors have abode ; 
Can you renounce it, can you disown it? 

Can you forget it, its glory and its goal? 

Where is the hardship, where is the pain of it? 

Lost in the limbo of things you've forgot ; 

Only remain the guerdon and gain of it; 

Zest of the foray, and God, how you fought ! 

You who have made good, you foreign faring; 

Your money magic to far lands had whirled ; 

Can you forget those days of vast daring, 

There with your soul on the Top o' the World? 
Nights when no peril could keep you awake on 
Spruce boughs you spread for your couch in the 
snow ; 

Taste all your feasts like the beans and the bacon 
Fried at the camp-fire at forty below? 

14 


THE MEN OF THE HIGH NORTH 15 


Can you remember your huskies all going, 

Barking with joy and their brushes in air; 

You in your parka, glad-eyed and glowing, 
Monarch, your subjects the wolf and the bear? 
Monarch, your kingdom unravisht and gleaming ; 

Mountains your throne, and a river your car ; 
Crash of a bull moose to rouse you from dreaming ; 
Forest your couch, and your candle a star. 

You who this faint day the High North is luring 
Unto her vastness, taintlessly sweet ; 

You who are steel-braced, straight-lipped, enduring, 
Dreadless in danger and dire in defeat: 

Honor the High North ever and ever, 

Whether she crown you, or whether she slay; 
Suffer her fury, cherish and love her — 

He who would rule, he must learn to obey. 

Men of the High North, fierce mountains love you ; 

Proud rivers leap when you ride on their breast. 
See, the austere sky, pensive above you, 

Dons all her jewels to smile on your rest. 
Children of Freedom, scornful of frontiers, 

We who are weaklings honor your worth. 

Lords of the Wilderness, Princes of Pioneers, 
Let’s have a rouse that will ring round the earth. 

Robert W. Service 


A WINTER RIDE 

Who shall declare the joy of the running? 

Who shall tell of the pleasures of flight? 
Springing and spuming the tufts of wild heather, 
Sweeping, wide-winged, through the blue dome 
of light. 

Everything mortal has moments immortal, 

Swift and God-gifted, immeasurably bright. 

So with the stretch of the white road before me, 
Shining snow crystals rainbowed by the sun, 
Fields that are white, stained with long, cool, blue 
shadows, 

Strong with the strength of my horse as we run. 
Joy in the touch of the wind and the sunlight ! 

Joy ! With the vigorous earth I am one. 

Amy Lowell 


16 


SKIS 


A pale new moon hung in the western sky 
Above the banners of retreating day, 

Almost it seemed a golden aeroplane 
To spy on night, pursuing from the east. 

The summit elm where I stood sent out 
An endless shadow from the light, so faint 
It was a dimming breath of amethyst 
Across the mirror of the wind-swept snow. 

The world, I thought, had never been so still ; 

I heard the tinkle of a blown ice chip, 

The crack of frozen bark within the tree 
As with the night the day’s thaw stiffened up, 
The faint, far baying of a village dog; 

But other sound was not, except the wind, 
Viewless and chill, forever rushing by. 

Below my feet the pasture dropped away 
With white-capped boulders strewing it, a long 
Descent to that toy barn and tiny house 
That snuggled warmly by the valley road, 
Behind a hemlock screen. I pulled my cap 
More firmly down about my ears, 'drew in 
One last deep breath of stinging air, and slipped 
My skis across the rim : then farewell breath, 
And almost vision, too, as tears rolled down 
1 7 


i8 


SKIS 


My cheeks, while past my face the riven air 
Tore by, and all the hillside flew to meet 
My flying figure with a low-hissed song — 

The song of rapid runners cleaving snow! 

A moment only, and the barn appeared 
Looming beside me, that had been a toy. 

A stem with all my strength, a spurt of snow, 
And I was through the gate, where ran the road 
Sedate and level past the valley farms. 

Far up above me on the lonely hill 
My summit elm sentinelled the ridge, 

A toy tree children might take out and stand 
Beside their soldiers on the play-room floor. 

Walter Prichard Eaton 


A SNOW-SHOE TRAMP 


Away, away o’er the glittering snow, 

Blanketed, moccasined, merry we go, 

To the laughing word and the joyous song, 

And the clicking of snow-shoes light and strong 
Away to the river, whose frozen tides 
The flawless carpet of ermine hides; 

O’er feathery billows of drifted snow 
That lie like a fleece o’er the depths below, 

As free and as light as birds of the air, 

We tramp o’er this snow-bound desert, fair. 

Past sentinels looming on either shore, 

Of cedar and fir and tamarack hoar; 

Past openings deep in the ice and snow, 

And the stakes that anchor the nets below, 

Where the silvery smelt and the haddock strong 
Are the fisherman’s gain through the winter long 
Past wonderful snow-fringed forests of green 
Where the fires of the Micmac camp are seen ; 
And barrens of pine, where the moose and deer 
May wander at will in the moonlight clear ; 

Past scattering homes, whose glimmering lights 
Some message may bear to the wooded heights, 

Where fathers and sons and husbands toil, 

19 


20 


A SNOW-SHOE TRAMP 


To wrest from the forest its wealth of spoil ; 
Past all, in their frost-gemmed setting of white, 
And the radiant moonlit charm of night. 

To the merry jest and the snatch of song, 

And the whispered query, we haste along ; 

To the laughter of hearts which know no care, 
Save that which an Eros has planted there; 

For e’en in the midst of a snow-shoe tramp, 

The wandering archer may set his stamp. 

And the silver shaft from his ice-bound string, 
Through northern blizzards its way may wing, 
As some blanketed Psyche’s laughing eyes, 

May prove in this moonlight tramp, the prize. 

Beatrice Harlowe 


SONG OF THE CHAMOIS HUNTER 


Oh, brave may be those bands, perchance, 
Who ride where tropic deserts glow — 
Who bring with lasso and with lance 
The tiger to their saddle’s prow: 

But I would climb the snowy track 
Alone, as I have ever been, 

And with a chamois on my back, 

Descend to merry Meyringen. 

Oh, they may sing of eyes of jet, 

That melt in passion’s dreamy glance ; 

Of forms that to the castanet 

Sway through the languor of the dance : — 
But let me clasp some blue-eyed girl, 

Whose arms impulsive clasp again ; 

And through a storm of music whirl 
The dizzy waltz at Meyringen. 

And they may sing, as oft they will, 

Of joy beneath the southern vine, 

And in luxurious banquets fill 

Their goblets with the orient wine: — 

But when the Alpland winter rolls 
His tempests over hill and glen, 

Let me sit ’mid the steaming bowls 
That cheer the nights at Meyringen. 

21 


22 SONG OF THE CHAMOIS HUNTER 


Brave men are there with hands adroit 
At every game our land deems good ; 
To wrestle, or to swing the quoit, 

Or drain the bowl of brotherhood : 
And when the last wild chase is through, 
We’ll sit together, gray-haired men, 
And, with the gay Lisette to brew, 

Once more be young in Meyringen. 

Thomas Buchanan Read 


COUNTRY SLEIGHING 


Push back the tables, and from the stables 
Bring Tom, the fiddler, in ; 

All take your places, and make your graces 
And let the dance begin. 

The girls are beating time 
To hear the music sound ; 

Now foot it, foot it, foot it, foot it, 

And swing your partners round. 

Last couple toward the left! all forward! 

Cotillons through, let’s wheel: 

First tune the fiddle, then down the middle 
In old Virginia Reel. 

Play Money Musk to close, 

Then take the “long chasse,” 

While in to supper, supper, supper, 

The landlord leads the way. 

The bells are ringing, the ’ostlers bringing 
The cutters up anew; 

The beasts are neighing ; too long we’re staying, 
The night is half-way through. 

Wrap close the buffalo-robes, 

We’re all aboard once more; 

Now jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle. 

Away from the tavern-door. 

23 


24 


COUNTRY SLEIGHING 


So follow, follow, by hill and hollow. 

And swiftly homeward glide. 

What midnight splendor ! how warm and tender 
The maiden by your side! 

The sleighs drop far apart, 

Her words are soft and low; 

Now, if you love her, love her, love her, 

Tis safe to tell her so. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman 


THE SKATER 


My glad feet shod with the glittering steel 
I was the god of the winged heel. 

The hills in the far white sky were lost, 

The world lay still in the wide white frost. 

And the woods hung hushed in their long white 
dream 

By the ghostly, glimmering, ice-blue stream. 

Here was a pathway, smooth like glass. 

Where I and the wandering wind might pass 

To the far-off palaces, drifted deep, 

Where Winter’s retinue rests in sleep. 

I followed the lure, I fled like a bird, 

Till the startled hollows awoke and heard 

A spinning whisper, a sibilant twang, 

As the stroke of the steel on the tense ice rang; 

And the wandering wind was left behind 
As faster, faster, I followed my mind. 

25 


26 


THE SKATER 


Till the blood sang high in my eager brain, 

And the joy of my flight was almost pain. 

Then I stayed the rush of my eager speed 
And silently went as a drifting seed — 

Slowly, furtively, till my eyes 

Grew big with the awe of a dim surmise. 

And the hair of my neck began to creep 
At hearing the wilderness talk in sleep. 

Shapes in the fir-gloom drifted near. 

In the deep of my heart I heard my fear ; 

And I turned and fled, like a soul pursued, 

From the white, inviolate solitude. 

Charles G. D. Roberts 


DARTMOUTH'S WINTER CAMPS 

When we're crowdin' to the fireside up at Cube or 
Moosilauke 

And our pipes are draggin' slowly and we're too 
near pipped to talk ; 

When a vasty sense o' vittles takes possession of 
us all, 

When the shadows from the firelight are creepin' 
up the wall, 

And the time is fast approachin' when we're billed 
to hit the hay — 

Why, then Ernie starts to tunin' on his old Har- 
monicay. 

Oh, he ain’t no Boston opera virtuoso, Ernie ain't; 

And his sense of classic technique, I should say, is 
rather faint; 

While the range of his selections isn't wide and 
isn't high, 

And I shan't request his service at my fun’ral when 
I die; 

But for callin' forth the muses to attend the D. O. C. 

I'll place my bets on Ernie and his old Harmonikee. 

27 


28 DARTMOUTH’S WINTER CAMPS 


First he starts us kind o’ easy with a drag at Old 
Black Joe; 

Then he yearns for old Virginny where the corn 
and taters grow. 

When his quav’ring Miserere makes us wish we, 
too, were dead, 

Why, he shifts to something livelier and makes us 
dance instead. 

For “Jingle Bells,” or “Dixie,” or “Turkey in the 
Straw”- — 

It’s all the same to Ernie and his old Harmonicaw. 


O’ course he sometimes mixes in a modern tune 
or so, 

That he picked up in the theatre or a peerade long 
ago; 

But it’s “Old familiar melodies” that D. O. C. men 
like, 

When they’re lollin’ by the fireside, dopin’ out to- 
morrow’s hike. 

And there’s nothing eases up the aches and chases 
care from me, 

So much as hearin’ Ernie on his old Harmonikee. 

When my last long hike is over, and I reach the 
cabin door, 

And wipe life’s snow from off my skis, and know 
my skiin’s o’er; 


DARTMOUTH’S WINTER CAMPS 29 


When I eat my last camp vittles by the last fire’s 
flickerin’ light, 

And make my bed contented in the darkness of the 
night — 

I’ve but one lone prayer to offer when I hit the 
final hay — 

To be lulled to sleep by Ernie on his old Harmonicay. 

Anonymous 


WINTERTIME 


When icicles hang by the wall, 

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, 
And Tom bears logs into the hall, 

And milk comes frozen home in pail, 
When blood is nipped, and ways be foul, 
Then nightly sings the staring owl, 

To- who ; 

To- whit, to- who, a merry note, 

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 

When all aloud the wind doth blow, 

And coughing drowns the parson’s saw, 
And birds sit brooding in the snow, 

And Marian’s nose looks red and raw, 
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, 
Then nightly sings the staring owl, 

To- who ; 

To-whit, to-who, a merry note, 

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 

William Shakespeare 


30 


THE HOODOO 


Owned a pair o' skates onc't. — Traded 
Fer 'em, — stropped 'em on an' waded 
Up and down the crick, a-waitin' 

Tel she'd freeze up fit fer skatin'. 

Mildest winter I remember — 

More like Spring — than Winter-weather! — 
Didn't frost tel 'bout December — 

Git up airly, ketch a feather 
Of it, maybe, 'crost the winder — 

Sunshine swings it like a cinder! 

Well — I waited — and kep' waitin' ! 

Couldn't see my money’s wo'th in 
Them-air skates, and was no skatin' 

Ner no hint o' ice ner nothin’ ! 

So, one day — along in airly 
Spring — I swopped 'em off — and barely 
Closed the dicker, 'fore the weather 
Natchurly jes' slipped the ratchet, 

And crick — tail-race — all together, 

Froze so tight, cat couldn't scratch it! 

James Whitcomb Riley 


3 1 


HANOVER WINTER SONG 


Ho, a song by the fire! 

(Pass the pipes, fill the bowl!) 

Ho, a song by the fire ! 

— With a skoal ! . . . 

For the wolf wind is whining in the doorways, 
And the snow drifts deep along the road, 

And the ice-gnomes are marching from their Nor- 
ways, 

And the great white cold walks abroad. 

(Boo-oo-o! pass the bowl!) 

For here by the fire 
We defy frost and storm. 

Ha, ha ! we are warm 

And we have our hearts’ desire ; 

For here’s four good fellows 
And the beechwood and the bellows, 

And the cup is at the lip 
In the pledge of fellowship. 

Skoal ! 

Richard Hovey 


32 


THE SCENE LENDS ITS AID 


The scene lends its aid, see! the moon’s shining 
high, 

So bright, the stars scarcely are seen in the sky. 

A background of pines sway in melody sweet, 

The snow crisp and dry ’neath the moccasined feet ; 
And close side by side at the head of the “chute” 
A maiden and youth, each in gay blanket suit. 

The wind’s kissed her cheek to a bright rosy hue, 
Her eyes glisten clear as the soft summer dew; 
And though the hill drops nearly eighty degrees, 
Her cheek never pales, she seems quite at her ease ; 
And soon they are seated : one word ! and they fly — 
Yes! swoop like the eagle from mountain-top high! 

How firmly she’s poised, the lines taut in her hand, 
While he seated sideways, with foot keeps com- 
mand 

Of the flying toboggan, his face o’er her shoulder 
So close to her cheek ; one strong arm doth enfold 
her 

Just to keep her from swaying, so great is the pace 
The Lightning Express would be passed in the race ! 

O’Hara Baynes 


33 


WITH GOOD STEEL RINGING 


When the wan white moon in the skies feels chilly, 
And wraps her round with a rifting cloud ; 

When the poplar stands like a monster lily, 

That swings and sways in a silvern shroud ; 
When you don't get up with the lark at dawning, 
But snooze and slumber till twelve instead, 

And vow by the fire in the evening yawning, 

’Tis really too chilly to go to bed ; — 

Sing Tan-tarra-ti, 

A-skating we hie, 

Where good ice bends ’neath a frosty sky. 

There are tiny waists you may put your arm round 
(Don’t attempt it on land — that’s all!), 

And white warm hands you may clasp till charm- 
bound, 

(Just in case they should chance to fall) ; 

There are tresses trailing and bright eyes glowing, 
Lips that laugh when you lend a hand, 

And dainty ankles they can't help a-showing 
(Quite by accident — understand!), 


Sing Tan-tarra-ti, 
A-skating we hie, 



The j oiliest sport in the world, say I ! 

34 


WITH GOOD STEEL RINGING 


35 


As a yacht that bends with the wind’s wooing, 

And dips white wings in the waves that swirl, 

We bound and bend with a glad hallooing, 

We curve and circle and wheel and whirl: 

As a ship that sweeps with her wet sail swinging 
When storms are spent past the harbour bar, 

We glide erect then, with good steel ringing 
We skim like swallow or shoot like star. 

Sing Tan-tarra-ti, 

A-skating we hie, 

Like curlew winging we wheel or fly. 

You may chant of cricket and tell of tennis, 

Or yarn of yachts, till you both get warm ; 

You may talk of travel, and Rome and Venice, 

And brag of boating or croquet’s charm ; 

But summer has gone, and, with all your prating, 
The grapes are sour, for they hang too high : 

So hurrah for winter, hurrah for skating, 

The jolliest sport in the world, say I. 

Sing Tan-tarra-ti, 

A-skating we hie, 

With the good steel ringing like wind we fly. 

Coulson Kernahan 


A CURLER’S ELEGY 

When Winter muffles up his cloak, 
And binds the mire like a rock ; 

When to the lochs the curlers flock 
Wi’ gleesome speed, 

Wha* will they station at the cock? 
Tam Samson’s dead! 

He was the king of a’ the core, 

To guard, or draw, or wick a bore, 
Or up the rink like Jehu roar, 

In time o’ need ; 

But now he lags on Death’s hog-score. 
Tam Samson’s dead! 

Robert Burns 


36 


THE ICEBOAT 


There is a thing so fair, so free, 

Blessed by the sky, buoyed by the sea — 

It seems a symbol of the best 

That life can give; of youth and zest, 

Of hope and laughter, and the sigh 
We utter wordless rapture by — 

It is the yacht. 

There is a thing so hemmed and pent 
And fought by every element, 

Dead wave beneath, dull sky o’erhead, 
Despair it typifies? Instead, 

Shod well with steel, its wings spread high, 
It symbolizes victory — 

It is the iceboat. 

Alice Ward Bailey 


37 


THE CHANNEL-STANE 


Inscribed wi’ britherly love to a’ keen curlers. 

Up! curlers, up! oor freeiT John Frost 
Has closed his grip on loch an* lea: 

Up! time’s ower precious to be lost — 

An* rally roun’ the rink an’ tee ; 

Wi’ steady han’, an’ nerve, an’ e’e — 

Noo cannie, noo wi’ micht an* main, 

To test by “wick,” an* “guard,” an* “draw,” 

Oor prowess wi’ the Channel-Stane. 

O the roarin’ Channel-Stane! 

The cannie, creepin’ Channel-Stane! 

What music to the curler’s ear 
Like music o’ the Channel-Stane ! 

It’s bliss to curler’s eye an’ ear 
When “crack an egg,” or “chap an’ lie” 

Is greeted wi’ responsive cheer, 

And waving besoms raised on high ; 

Or — when nocht else is left to try — 

Wi’ rapid glance, an’ easy swing, 

The “ootring” o’ a stane is chipp’d, 

And twirl’d within the inner ring. 

O the roarin’ Channel-Stane ! 

The toddlin’, twinklin’ Channel-Stane! 

What music to the curler’s ear 
Like music o’ the Channel-Stane! 

38 


THE CHANNEL-STANE 


39 


The time is call’d — the match a tie ; 

The game contestit close an’ keen 
Seems seal’d, for guards like bulwarks lie — 

Nae vestige o’ the winner seen: 

Anon the skip, wi’ dauntless mien, 

Puts doon his broom — “Creep till’t,” cries he; — 
The stone’s sent hirplin’ through the “port,” 

And soopit deftly to the tee. 

O the roarin’ Channel-Stane ! 

The hirplin’, wimplin’ Channel-Stane! 

What music to the curler’s ear 
Like music o’ the Channel-Stane ! 

It boots not whence the curler hails, 

If curler keen an’ staunch he be — 

Frae Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales, 

Or colonies ayont the sea; — 

A social brotherhood are we, 

And, after we are deid and gane, 

We’ll live in literature an’ lair — 

In annals o’ the Channel-Stane ! 

O the roarin’ Channel-Stane! 

The witchin’, winsome Channel-Stane! 

What music to the curler’s ear 
Like music o’ the Channel-Stane! 

John Usher 


ICE-FISHING IN WINTER 


Ho! Sing of your trout in the Spring betimes 
When birds are mating and leaves are green! 
Ho ! Sing of your bass in glowing rhymes 
When Autumn shines in her golden sheen ! 
But give me a Winter morn and ice. 

On the frozen cove a foot or more, 

And pike and perch that our lures entice 

To the holes we cut near the shelving shore; 
And klink! klink! klink! the chisel rings, 
And ice-chips twinkle and flash and fly, 
And loud and glad the fisher sings 

In the bright sunshine of an azure sky. 

The glinting snow be jewels the brush; 

Still is the landscape, calmly grand ; 

We miss the song of the hermit thrush 
From the thicket near in this silent land, 

But the prowling pike is fierce and bold, 

And our tip-ups dance in merry glee. 

Though zero *tis we heed not the cold, 

But hew at the ice right merrily. 

And klink! klink! klink! the chisel rings, 
And ice-chips twinkle and flash and fly, 
And loud and glad the fisher sings 

In the bright sunshine of an azure sky. 
40 


ICE-FISHING IN WINTER 


4i 


Away from the desk! Away from the mart! 

To the frozen cove from the fetid room 
Where the bracing nerves and the bounding heart 
Shall paint the cheeks a ruddier bloom. 

Come wield the chisel each hole to pierce, 

Then set the line with cunning fine. 

Lo! here your guerdon — a pickerel fierce, 

Or giant perch on the speeding line ! 

O! klink! klink! klink! the chisel rings, 

And ice-chips twinkle and flash and fly, 
And loud and glad the fisher sings 

In the bright sunshine of an azure sky. 

John Harrington Keene 


HOCKEY 


When you hack a fellow's shin, 

Say “Sorry," 

Or his ankle or his chin, 

Say “Sorry": 

If their right wing is too fast, 

And you see him flying past, 

Should you trip him, and he’s grassed, 
Say “Sorry.” 

When the ball is thrown from “touch,” 
Mark your man ; 

“Mark the ball," you say? Not much, 
Mark your man; 

Whirl your cudgel in the air, 

Anyhow and anywhere, 

On any spot that’s bare 
Mark your man. 

When their forwards get away, 

Shout “Sticks!" 

But if your side “scores," then they 
Shout “Sticks!" 

Sometimes, of course, you call 
“Offside," sometimes “Hand ball," 
But better far than all 
Shout “Sticks!" 

42 


HOCKEY 


43 


Knock “corners” off the foe, 
That’s hockey ! 

And pay back what you owe, 
That’s hockey! 

Round the goals the wounded sit, 
And the language they emit 
Is — well, suitable and fit 
For Hockey! 

Anonymous 


THE GUDE GAUN GAME O’ CURLIN’ 


Cheer up, my lads, for auld John Frost 
His snaw-white flag’s unfurlin’; 

And, by my troth, this year we’ll hae 
A gude gaun game o’ curlin’. 

For well ye ken it’s John himsel’ 

That’s at your door pins tirlin’, 

Sae tak’ your brooms, for sune we’ll hae 
A gude gaun game o’ curlin’. 

When wintry winds sae cauld and snell, 
Blaw doun the lang glen swirlin’, 

Then curlers keen begin to think 
Upon the game o* curlin’. 

For weel they ken they meet wi’ frien’s, 
And no wi’ auld wives snirlin’; 

Sae tak’ your brooms, for sune we’ll hae 
A gude gaun game o’ curlin’. 

Aye, though the winds blaw cauld and snell, 
A’ ither folk are nirlin’, 

Our speerits rise as ithers fa’ 

Whene’er we think o’ curlin’. 

For naething else can warm our hearts, 

Or set our blood a’ dirlin’; 

Sae tak’ your brooms, for sune we’ll hae 
A gude gaun game o’ curlin’. 

44 


THE GUDE GAME OF CURLIN' 45 


Sae cheer, my lads, for auld John Frost 
His snaw-white flag’s unfurlin', 

And on the roaring rink we’ll sune 
Our channel-stanes be hurlin’. 

But while around this board we sit 
Our caps and coggies birlin’, 

We’ll drink “Success, and sune to hae 
A gude gaun game o’ curlin’ !” 

James A. Sidey 


/ 


THE HUNTERS 


The White Owl sits on a low snow-drift , 

Away from the Hunter's hounds , 

And longs and waits for the latch to lift 
When the Trapper shall go his rounds. 

O’er the rolling prairie see him run, 

As he reads on the snow-page fair: 

Here is the neat, straight trail of the Fox ; 

Here are the bounds of the Hare; 

Here’s where the Fox found the Hare track fresh, 
And see! was pursuing him there! 

Just think of the meeting those trailers will have 
When one track replaces the pair! 

Now here are the chains of the Grouse’s trail ; 

They turn and they wind about; 

And the Hunter crawls till the flock is sprung 
And whirrs from a snow-drift out, 

Save two, which fall at the roar of the gun 
And redden the dazzling snow. 

(Still keeps the Owl his distance safe , 

But follows , now fast, now slow.) 

4 6 


THE HUNTERS 


47 


And here was the place of a poisoned bait, 

Where naught but its print now lies, 

For a wolf has traced it up the wind 
And swallowed the tempting prize. 

Here ’t was griping his vitals and choking his 
breath — 

That wolfskin is taken at last ! 

See! but a few steps, then he staggered and fell, 
And writhed as his life went fast. 

There he arose and he struggled anew, 

And staggered again ! — but no ! 

The strength that is born of his wild, free life 
Has conquered this deadly foe; 

And the steps of the wolf grow steady and strong 
Till he’s spurning the prairie again. 

(Still the White Owl, following far behind, 
Winnows low o’er the distant plain.) 

Now this is the place of another bait, 

With Fox tracks here and there: 

Both bait and Fox are gone, and the tracks 
The power of the poison declare. 

Still he follows and scans as he onward runs ; 

But see! by the bushes ahead 
There’s a yellow fur — ’tis the Fox himself : 

In the snow he lies stark and dead ! 


48 


THE HUNTERS 


( From a neighboring tree , the Owl's great eyes 
Take in the scene below ; 

And he bides till the carrion furless lies, 

And waits till the Hunter takes up his prize 
And takes up his gun to go. 

This is the chance that the Owl foresaw 
When he followed afar on the snow.) 

Ernest Thompson Seton 


THE BIRTH OF THE SNOWSHOE 


Time the Red-man had dominion 
And the world and love were young 1 , 
Lonely sat a Chieftain’s daughter 

Strangely crooning love’s new tongue. 
Soft her cheeks as downy nestling, 

Black her hair as raven’s plumes, 

In her eyes the deeps of pine-woods, 

Ripe her lips as wild-plum’s bloom. 

“Oh, my love ! Why doth he tarry ? 

Doth the Snow-Sprite stay his feet, 
Strewing deep his path with pitfalls, 
Traps to snare my runner fleet? 

Hath the Frost-King chilled his singing 
That his love-call is not heard 
Ringing through the forest’s stillness 
With the joy of mating bird?” 

“Lend your aid, O forest children, 

Ye who ’mid its mazes dwell; 

Teach your song ye tossing branches, 
Fleet of foot your secret tell ! 

49 


THE BIRTH OF THE SNOWSHOE 


Through the snow-foam’s drifting whiteness 
Winged shall fly my love to me, 

And the rhythm of his footfall, 

Passing, voice Love’s melody !” 

Came the caribou and cougar — 

Who so fleet and strong of limb? 

Swift, the eagle and the wild-goose, 
Answering, swept the tree-tops’ rim, 

“We can shame thy laggard lover, 

Teach his faltering feet to fly, 

Lead him safe past Snow-Sprite pitfalls, 

Far from Wood Nymph’s siren cry!” 

Sprang the stately, fleet wapiti, 

Leaping as with winged stride ; 

None so fleet and none so kingly, 
Antler-crowned, the forest’s pride. 

“Take my life, O royal maiden — 

Yield I this for love’s dear sake — 

Of my heart a charm thou’lt fashion, 

Fleet as I who wears shall make !” 

“Take thee withes of singing branches 
That the murmuring winds have kissed ; 
Rive the threads from out my mantle, 
Skilfully, enweaving, twist, 

Frame thee wings to deck thy loved one ; 


THE BIRTH OF THE SNOWSHOE 51 


On his feet with braided thong 

Of thy dark and shining tresses, 

Bind with love-knot, firm and strong!” 

“Naught shall then his coming tarry — 

Snow-cloud’s blight or frost-death’s chill — 

And the music of his passing 

Shall with joy the wood’s gloom fill!” 

Laid he down his robe of velvet, 

Kingly tribute, at her side, 

All its richness dark empurpled 
With his life-blood’s ebbing tide. 

Took she, then, the singing branches, 

And the monarch’s riven vest; 

Deftly weaved the magic net-work; 

Shaped it fair, with dove-plumes drest. 

Thongs she wove of two soft tresses, 

Bound them with the mystic tie. 

That no mortal man unloosen — 

Strong as Love or Destiny. 

To his lodge, by fleetest runner. 

Sent her gift ; nor tarried she. 

Swifter than the North-wind’s rushing 
Came he, speeding mightily. 

Yet, no man might see the passing 
Of the winged hunter’s feet, 


52 THE BIRTH OF THE SNOWSHOE 

But the music of his snow-wings 
On her listening ear floats sweet. 

5 fc * * * 

Oft, the silent, lonely trapper, 

As he tramps the whitened waste 
On his swiftly-gliding snowshoes, 

Distant camp to reach in haste, 

Hears the spirit-hunter’s passing 
’Mid the forest’s slumber deep, 

And the music of his snow-wings, 

As he hies his tryst to keep. 

Samuel M. Baylis 


SKATING 


We speed o’er the star-lighted mirror along, 

And the wood and the mountain re-echo our song. 
As on, like the wing of the eagle, we sweep, 

Now gliding, now wheeling, we ring o’er the deep. 
The winds whistle keenly, — the red cheek is warm, 
And there’s none who would yield not his breast to 
the storm. 

The stars are above us, so full and so bright, 

And the mirror below us is gemmed with their 
light. 

Like the far-wheeling hawk, in the mid-air we fly ; 
A sky is above us, — below us a sky. 

As onward we glide in our race, we keep time ; 
And clear as the morning bell echoes our chime. 

By pine-covered rock, and by willow-bound shore, 
Breast even with breast, like a torrent we pour. 
Short, quick are our strokes, as we haste to the 
mark, 

And shrill is our cry, as the trill of the lark. 

The goal is now reached, and we bend us away, 
Wide wheeling, or curving in fanciful play. 

53 


54 SKATING 

How fondly I loved, when my life-blood was 
young,— 

When buoyant my heart, and my limbs newly 
strung — 

When the friends of my childhood were round me 
and near, — 

O’er the dark lake to sweep in our sounding ca- 
reer ; 

And high beat my soul, with enthusiast glow, 

As a clear-ringing music was pealing below. 

We heeded no danger, — we carelessly flew 

O’er a deep, that in darkness was lost to our view ; 

And onward we rushed, in the heat of our strife, 

As, o’er danger and ruin, we hurry through life. 

So we sped in our flight, as on pinions along, 

And the wood and the mountain re-echoed our 
song. 


James Gates Percival 


THE WINTER HUNTERS 


Mounted on snow-shoes, with their food 
And blankets on light sledges pack’d, 

The hunters of the wild stag cross 
The snow’s immeasurable tract. 

For leagues they travel — pleasant task 
Is theirs to form the camp at night ; 

To stack the arms ; to fell a pine 
For shelter, soaring to vast height ; 

To heap the fresh untrodden snow 
To windward like a rampart wall ; 

To feed the camp-fire till it flames 
Like furnace o’er the hemlocks tall; 

To spread the couch with fragrant tips 
Of spicy cedar, sweet for rest. 

Then, when some Indian guide hath ta’en. 
Thro’ frozen lake, of trout a score, 

Some hunter hath brought in a brace 
Of the ruff’d grouse, to swell the store. 
The bubbling pan and roasting spit 
Invite them to the welcome board, 

Where high the savory meat is pil’d, 

And fast the generous cup is pour’d; 
Then pipe is smok’d and tale is told, 

And each one, wrapp’d in blanket’s fold, 
Sleeps sound beneath the winter sky, 

Till dappled morning greets the eye. 

Isaac McLellan 


55 


THE SKAITER’S MARCH 


Composed for the Skater's Club at Edinburgh 

This snell and frosty morning, 

With rhind the trees adorning. 

Tho' Phoebus be below? 

Through the sparkling snow, 

A skating we go, 

With a fal, lal, lal, lal, lal, lal, 

To the sound of the merry, merry horn. 

From the right to the left we're plying, 
Swifter than winds we're flying, 

Spheres with spheres surrounding, 

Health and strength abounding, 

In circles we sweep. 

With a fal, lal, lal, lal, lal, lal, 

To the sound of the merry, merry horn. 

Our poise still we keep, 

Behold how we sweep, 

The face of the deep, 

With a fal, lal, lal, lal, lal, lal, 

To the sound of the merry, merry horn. 

56 


THE SKAITER’S MARCH 


57 


Great Jove looks down with wonder, 
To view his sons of thunder, 

Tho’ the water he seal, 

We rove on our heel, 

Our weapons are steel, 

And no danger we feel, 

With a fal, lal, lal, lal, lal, lal, 

To the sound of the merry, merry horn. 

See the Club advances, 

See how they join the dances, 

Horns and trumpets sounding, 

Rocks and hills resounding, 

Let Tritons now blow, 

For Neptune below, 

His beard dares not shew, 

Or call us his foe, 

With a fal, lal, lal, lal, lal, lal, 

To the sound of the merry, merry horn. 

Charles Dibdin 


THE WINTER CAMP FIRE 


Above tbe mountain, bleak and bare, 
Below the noisy stream, 

The few soft snowflakes in the air 
Are diamonds in the ruddy gleam 
That flashes from my fire. 

And from the blaze, bright, silvery lines 
Flit in and out among the pines. 

Sorrow and pain are put to flight, 

And all the cares and fears of night 
Are laid upon the pyre. 

But at the charmed circle’s bound 
Grim Winter stands, with icy hands ; 

And from the barren, frozen ground, 
Their lair, leap darkness and despair. 

Threatening now, and now deciding, 
Never stops their ghostly gliding; 

Never ends their awful moaning, 
Triple curses oft intoning. 

While, anon, their goblin shrieks 
Are re-echoed by the peaks. 

Thus, with eyes foreboding danger, 
Keep their watch upon the stranger. 

58 


THE WINTER CAMP FIRE 


59 


Up to heaven leaps the flame 
And the spectres, put to shame, 
Backward fly. From the sky 

Softly steal, with many a blessing, 
Shades of dreamland. They, caressing, 
Bring lotus and Falemian wine, 
Olympian nectar, all divine. 

And, while I sleep, they vigils keep, 
Till, from the valley, rosy day 

Has chased the sprites of night away. 

Shoshone 


SKATER AND WOLVES 


Swifter the flight ! Far, far and high 
The wild air shrieks its savage cry, 

And all the earth is ghostly pale, 

While the young skater, strong and hale, 
Skims fearlessly the forest by. 

Hush ! shrieking blast, but wail and sigh ! 
Well sped, O skater, fly thee, fly! 

Mild moon, let not thy glory fail! 
Swifter the flight ! 

O, hush thee, storm! thou canst not vie 
With that low summons, hoarse and dry. 
He hears, and ah, his spirits quail — 

He laughs and sobs within the gale, 

On, anywhere! He must not die, — 
Swifter the flight ! 

George Herbert Clarke 


60 


THE JOLLY CURLERS 


Tune: “O' for him back again!” 

Of a’ the games that e’er I saw, 

Man, callant, laddie, birkie, wean, 

The dearest far aboon them a’ 

Was ay the witching channel-stane. 

Oh for the channel-stane. 

The fell-gude game, the channel-stane ! 
There's ne'er a game that e’er I saw 
Can match auld Scotland's channel-stane! 

I’ve been at bridals unco glad, 

Wi’ courtin’ lasses wondrous fain : 

But what is a’ the fun I’ve had, 

Compare it wi’ the channel-stane? 

Were I a sprite in yonder sky, 

Never to come back again, 

I’d sweep the moon and starlets by, 

And play them at the channel-stane. 

We’d boom across the Milky Way; 

One tee should be the Northern Wain ; 
Another, bright Orion’s ray ; 

A comet for a channel-stane. 

James Hogg 


6i 


SLEIGHING 


Brightly beams the moon to-night, 
Flooding with its silvery light 
All the snow, here below; 

Nature round us seems to glisten, 
While we skim along and listen, 

As we go, 

To the music of the bells, 

As it loud and louder swells — 
Drawing near, now we hear 
Voices sing in time and mingle, 

As they ring and chime and jingle, 
Sweet and clear. 

O’er the crisply frozen snow, 

Now we fast and faster go, 

In our sleigh, blithe and gay, 

And the time is swiftly fleeting, 

While with joy our hearts are beating, 
All the way. 

Through the clear and bracing air, 
Piercing keenly everywhere, 

Thus we ride, side by side, 

And the bells with mirth commingle, 
As they ring and chime and jingle, 

Far and wide. 

Orrin Chalfont Painter 
62 


THE LOST TRAIL 


While the drizzle falls on the slimy pavement, 
swelling 

The yellow gutter’s flow, 

And the ways are dense with the hosts of buying, 
selling, 

And hurrying to and fro, 

I know that out in the North the winds are crying 

Round the willowed shores of the long white lakes 
outlying, 

And the black pine woods where my old lost friends 
are dwelling, 

And the splendor of the snow. 

I know that mysterious land of wood and river, 

Where the half-breed hunters range; 

The snow wraiths dancing upon the hill slopes ever, 

The gray sun, low and strange ; 

The bull moose skulking through windrow and 
through hollow, 

The creak and crunch of raquettes where the track- 
ers follow; 

The dark spruce shades where the forest dreams' 
forever, 

But never dreams of change. 

63 


64 THE LOST TRAIL 

A snowshoe track leads up from the swamp and 
over, 

Where the otter trappers passed, 

To the drifted winter hut in the hemlock cover 
That shields it from the blast. 

Are you there, Pierre, Gaultier, as when we to- 
gether, 

Free in the face of the grim Canadian weather, 

Learned the changeless spell of the North to hold 
and love her, 

And turn to her at the last? 

The snowstorm blindly drives through the woods to 
smother 

The ancient trail I knew ; 

The track we blazed is lost, and never other 
Has marked that blind way through ; 

But the same great roar through the leagues of 
branches sweeping 

Wakes the desire of a homesick heart that has long 
been sleeping. 

O dark North woods, wild love and ruthless mother, 
I caH, I cry to you ! 


Frank Lillie Pollock 


SNOW SHOE TRAMP 


Up! up! the morn is breaking, 

Thro* the forest breaks the sun, 

Rouse, ye sleepers, time for dreaming, 
When our daily journey’s done, 

Bind the snow shoe fast with thong, too, 
See that all is tight and sure, 

All’s a bliss to, naught’s a-miss to 
A brave young Northwest voyageur. 

Tramp , tramp, on snow shoes tramping, 
All the day we marching go, 

Till at night by fires encamping, 

We find couches on the snow. 

On ! on ! Let men find pleasure 
In the city dull and drear. 

Life is freedom, life’s a treasure. 

As we all enjoy it here. 

Ha, ha, ha, ha, Ha, ha, ha, ha, 

See the novice down once more, 

Hear him shout, then, pull him out, then, 
Many a fall he’s had before. 

65 


66 


SNOW SHOE TRAMP 


Men may talk of steam and railroads, 
But full well our comrades know 
We can beat the fastest engine 
In a night tramp o’er the snow. 

It may puff, sir, it may blow, sir. 

It may whistle, it may scream, 

But lightly tripping, gently dipping, 
snow shoes leave behind the steam. 

Anonymous 


TO MY HOCKEY STICK 


Time’s up ! The season starting next October 
Will pass without your help, or even mine ; 

I shall have joined the sensible and sober 
Who play — in spirit— on the boundary line, 

And you, I fear (my man’s so autocratic), 

Will rest upon your laurels — in the attic. 

No more shall you essay the skilful bully, 

No longer glory in the dexterous pass ; 

This is — oh, do you realise it fully? — 

Good-bye for ever to short, springy grass ; 

For you no more that dearest joy the soul boasts — 
The sharp, clean shot that soars between the goal- 
posts. 

You represent that you are not yet broken? 

Well, nor am I. Unworthy thought, avaunt! 

Shall you and I endure to hear it spoken 
That we the scene of former triumphs haunt? 
Shall we adopt the clinging ways of smilax? 

Play half — then back — then goal! oh, anticlimax! 


68 


TO MY HOCKEY STICK 


Better be gone ere yet rheumatic suasion 
And knocks dispose of me and of yourself ; 

More dignified to choose one’s own occasion — 

To climb to, not be laid upon the shelf. 

And yet . . . one mounts in fear, by hope unbol- 
stered . . . 

From all one hears, the thing’s not even upholstered! 

V. H. Friedlaender 


THE SKATER BELLE 


Along the ice I see her fly 
With moonlit tresses blown awry, 

And floating from her twinkling feet 
Are wafted sounds as silvery sweet 
As April winds when May is nigh. 

Is it a Naiad coy and shy? 

Or can it be the Lorelei 

Who lures me with her rare deceit ? 

It is the hour for magic meet; 

Resist the spell, ’twere vain to try. 

Her beauty thrills the earth and sky 
From glowing cheek and flashing eye; 
And so she wanders fair and fleet 
The spangled branches bend to greet 
And wave a kiss as she goes by. 

Samuel Minturn Peck 


69 


SLEIGH-RIDE SONG 


The silver moon is beaming 
O’er crystal hills of snow ; 

The starry eyes of heaven are dreaming — 
Quiet all below. 

No tempests blowing — raining — snowing — 

The air is calm and still; 

Oh what a time to start the chime, 

Of a sleigh-ride o’er the hill! 

See how the horses, prancing, 

Are bearing us away, 

O’er creaking snow, with light hearts dancing, 
Bounding with the sleigh ! 

With valleys flying — forests sighing — 

Make the glorious country ring; 

And as before, we’ll join once more, 

And loud this chorus sing: 

The silver moon is beaming 
O’er crystal hills of snow ; 

The starry eyes of heaven are dreaming — 
Quiet all below, 

No tempests blowing — raining — snowing — 

The air is calm and still ; 

Oh what a time to start the chime, 

Of a sleigh-ride o’er the hill ! 

_ T. D. Vinton 
To 


THE WALKER OF THE SNOW 


Speed on, speed on, good Master! 
The camp lies far away ; 

We must cross the haunted valley 
Before the close of day. 

How the snow-blight came upon me 
I will tell you as we go, 

The blight of the Shadow Hunter 
Who walks the midnight snow. 

To the cold December heaven 

Came the pale moon and the stars, 

As the yellow sun was sinking 
Behind the purple bars. 

The snow was deeply drifted 
Upon the ridges drear 

That lay for miles between me 
And the camp for which we steer. 

Twas silent on the hill-side 
And by the sombre wood, 

No sound of life or motion 
To break the solitude. 

7i 


THE WALKER OF THE SNOW 


Save the wailing of the moose-bird 
With a plaintive note and low, 

And the skating of the red leaf 
Upon the frozen snow. 

And I said, “Though dark is falling, 
And far the camp must be, 

Yet my heart it would be lightsome 
If I had but company.” 

And then I sang and shouted, 
Keeping measure as I sped, 

To the harp-twang of the snowshoe. 
As it sprang beneath my tread. 

Nor far into the valley 
Had I dipped upon my way 

When a dusky figure joined me, 

In a capuchon of gray, 

Bending upon the snowshoes 
With a long and limber stride; 

And I hailed the dusky stranger 
As we travelled side by side. 

But no token of communion 
Gave he by word or look, 

And the fear-chill fell upon me 
At the crossing of the brook. 


THE WALKER OF THE SNOW 


For I saw by the sickly moonlight, 

As I followed, bending low, 

That the walking of the stranger 
Left no foot-marks on the snow. 

Then the fear-chill gathered o’er me 
Like a shroud around me cast, 

As I sank upon the snow-drift 

Where the Shadow Hunter passed. 

And the otter-trappers found me, 

Before the break of day, 

With my dark hair blanched and whitened 
As the snow in which I lay. 

But they spoke not as they raised me ; 

For they knew that in the night 
I had seen the Shadow Hunter, 

And had withered in his blight. 

Sancta Maria, speed us! 

The sun is falling low, — 

Before us lies the valley 
Of the Walker of the Snow ! 

Charles Dawson Shanly 


SONG FOR WINTER 


Now winter fills the world with snow, 
Wild winds across the country blow, 

And all the trees, with branches bare, 

Like beggars shiver in the air. 

Oh, now hurrah for sleds and skates! 

A polar expedition waits 

When school is done each day for me — 

Off for the ice-bound arctic sea. 

The ice is strong upon the creek, 

The wind has roses for the cheek, 

The snow is knee-deep all around, 

And earth with clear blue sky is crowned. 
Then come, and we may find the hut 
Wherein the Esquimau is shut, 

Or see the polar bear whose fur 
Makes fun of the thermometer. 

Let us who want our muscles tough 
Forsake the tippet and the muff. 

The keen fresh wind will do no harm, 

The leaping blood shall keep us warm, 

A spin upon our arctic main 

Shall drive the clouds from out the brain, 

And for our studies we at night 

Shall have a better appetite. 

Frank Dempster Sherman 
74 


TWELFTH NIGHT SONG 


Heaped be the fagots high, 

And the half-burned bough 
From last year’s revelry 
Be litten now! 

Brimmed be the posset bowl 
For every lusty soul; 

And while the maskers rule, 

Cry “Noel!” cry “Noel!” down all 
the halls of Yule ! 

O eager viols, thrill ! 

Pipe, hautboys, clear and sweet! 
Work your impetuous will. 

Ye restless feet! 

For every lip — a glass! 

For every lad — a lass ! 

And, ere the ardors cool, 

Cry “Noel!” cry “Noel!” down all 
the halls of Yule ! 

Clinton Scollakd 


75 


COASTING DOWN THE HILL 


There’s a glory in the speeding of a horse the 
nerves can feel, 

Or the swift and silent magic of a pedal-hastened 
wheel : 

Or the rushing and the foaming that the flying 
yachts possess, 

Or in the clinging to the pilot of a limited express ; 

But there’s naught to stir the senses, and there’s 
nothing ever will, 

Like the starry winter evenings when we coasted 
down the hill — 

Down the long and slippery hill — 

Down the steep and glaring hill — 

With the clinging, and the shrieking, and the laugh- 
ing hoarse and shrill ! 

Far above the pallid valley, hung the moon, so safe 
and high — 

Like a ball of ice it glittered in a frozen sea of sky ; 

And the trees were dressed in silver, and the bushes 
stood aglow, 

And a million jewels nestled on the bosom of the 
snow. 

But the eyes that we were watching, they were 
beaming brighter still, 

As we packed our load together to go coasting down 
the hill— 


COASTING DOWN THE HILL 


77 


Down the snowy, icy hill — 

Down the long and dizzy hill — 

With the shouting, and the calling, and the danger 
of a “spill” ! 


With a mile of road before us like a polished blade 
agleam. 

On the ready track we started, in a short delicious 
dream; 

Through the fences, past the bridges, over “thank- 
ye-ma’ams” to spare, 

Leaping from them like a panther, in the crisp and 
biting air ; 

Past the still and lonely school-house, and the frost- 
enfettered mill, 

Thinking naught about the stopping — with a laugh 
at every ill — 

Down the ne’er forgotten hill — 

Down the white and glowing hill — 

Just a streak of human lightning, we went flashing 
down the hill! 

And amid the rush and chatter, there were pressures 
of the hand, 

That the brain, amid its frenzy, left the heart to 
understand ; 

There were confidential clingings, that would never 
be bestowed, 


78 COASTING DOWN THE HILL 

On a straight, prosaic journey, and a strictly level 
road. 

Often spirit reached for spirit, and would never 
cease, until 

With a pang of joy it clasped it, in that journey 
down the hill — 

Down the swiftly travelled hill — 

Down the love-illumined hill — 

When a life’s divinest secret was discovered by a 
thrill! 

There were maidens in the party, that to-day are 
sober wives — 

Also lads at present living very proper business 
lives ; 

There were some that now already pay the ne’er 
evaded debt; 

But their spirits could not perish — they are some- 
where living yet! 

When we find them, I will warrant that their 
thoughts will quickly fill 

With the good old winter evenings when they 
coasted down the hill — 

Down the 2old and frosty hill — 

Down the warm and gleaming hill — 

Where were born a host of pleasures that a death 
can never kill! 


Will Carleton 


CURLING SONG 


A’ nicht it was freezing a* nicht I was sneezin', 
“Tak' care,” quo* the wifie, “gudeman, o’ yer 
cough ;” 

“A fig for the sneezin' ! Hurrah ! for the freezin' ! 

This day we're to play the bonspiel on the loch; 
Then get up, my auld leddy, the breakfast get 
ready, 

For the sun on the snaw-drift's beginnin' to blink ; 
Give me bannocks or brochan, I'm off for the lochan, 
To mak' the stanes glee to the tee or the rink.” 

Then hurrah for the curlin’ frae Girvan to Stirlin’ ! 

Hurrah for the lads of the besom and stane! 
“Ready, noo!” “Soop it up!” “Clap a guard!” 
“Steady, noo!” 

Oh! curlin’ aboon every game stands alane ! 

The ice it is splendid, it canna be mended ; 

Like glass ye may glower on't and shave aff yer 
beard ; 

And see how they gaither, cornin' ower the brown 
heather ; 

The servant and maister, the tenant and laird. 

79 


80 CURLING SONG 

There’s brave Jamie Fairlie, he’s there late and 
early, 

Better curlers than him or Tam Conn canna be; 
Wi’ the lads frae Kilwinnin* they’ll send the stanes 
spinnin’, 

Wi’ a whirr and a curr till they sib round the tee. 

It’s an unco-like story, that baith Whig and Tory 
Maun aye collieshangie like dogs ower a bane, 
And a’ denominations are wantin’ in patience, 

For nae kirk will thole to let ithers alane ; 

But in fine frosty weather, let a’ meet thegither, 
Wi’ a broom in their haun’, and a stane by the tee, 
And then, by my certies ! ye’ll see how a’ pairties 
Like brithers will love, and like brithers agree. 

Norman Macleod 


SKATING 


Come to the moonlit lake, 

Where rays of silver bright 
Their slender arrows break 
On the glassy pavement bright! 
For hearts are gay, and joy is rife ; 
And youth and beauty, love and life, 
Are out on the ice to-night. 

Not in the crowded hall. 

Where earth-lit tapers gleam. 

We’ll hold our festival, 

But out on the frozen stream; 

No dull, faint air, or heated room, 
Shall rob thy cheek of beauty’s bloom, 
Thine eye of its sparkling beam. 

Bright is the fairy scene ; 

The ringing steels resound; 

And gleams the glowing sheen 
To feet of beauty bound; 

And health, with rosy pencil, seeks 
To paint the blush on beauty’s cheeks, 
And the echoing laugh rings round. 

81 


82 


SKATING 


Ne’er such a pavement spread 
Glittered in marble halls; 

Ne’er gleamed such lamps o’erhead 
To gladden their carnivals; 

The circling hills, whose tree-clad brows 
Upbear the dome on cornice boughs, 

Are our lofty palace walls. 

Whence foaming waters roar 
That winter could not bind 
(Their brothers called on Huron’s shore, 
And they would not stay confined). 

As free and gay, and wild as they, 

We’ll speed e’en to the mystic way 
Of the isle with cedars lined. 

Earth and its cares forgot, 

Our hearts we’ll then reveal; 

And spurn each colder thought, 

As the ice the flashing steel. 

Who, ’neath the sway of Luna’s ray, 
Love’s sweet commands could disobey. 
Or its brighter beams conceal? 

John Lowry Stuart. 


A WINTER NIGHT 


When biting Boreas, fell and doure, 
Sharp shivers through the leafless bower ; 
When Phoebus gies a short-lived glower 
Far south the lift, 

Dim-darkening through the flaky shower, 
Or whirling drift: 

At night the storm the steeples rocked, 

Poor labor sweet in sleep was locked, 
While burns, wi’ snawy wreaths up-choked, 
Wild-eddying swirl, 

Or through the mining outlet bocked, 
Down headlong hurl. 

Listening the doors and winnocks rattle, 

I thought me on the ourie cattle, 

Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle 
O’ winter war, 

And through the drift, deep-lairing sprattle, 
Beneath a scaur. 

Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing, 
That, in the merry months o* spring, 
Delighted me to hear thee sing, 

What comes o’ thee ? 

Whare wilt thou cower thy chittering wing, 
And close thy e’e? 

83 


8 4 


A WINTER NIGHT 


E'en you, on murdering errands toil'd, 

Long from your savage home exiled, 

The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cot spoil'd, 
My heart forgets, 

While pitiless the tempest wild 
Sore on you beats. 

Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign, 

Dark muffled, view'd the dreary plain; 

Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train, 

Rose in my soul, 

When on my ear this plaintive strain, 

Slow, solemn, stole: — 

“Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust ! 
And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost! 
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows! 

Not all your rage, as now united, shows 
More hard unkindness, unrelenting, 
Vengeful malice unrepenting, 

Than heaven-illumined man on brother 
man bestows!” 


Robert Burns 


THE CLIPPER SLED 


Oh, for the winters that used to be! 

The winters that only a boy may see ! 

Rich with the snowflakes' rush and swirl ; 
Keen as a diamond ; pure as a pearl ; 
Brimming with healthful, rollicking fun; 
Sweet with their rest when the play was done ; 
With kingly revels each day decreed, 

And a clipper sled for the royal steed. 

A wonderful steed was this, in truth, 

Fit for the galloping pulse of youth; 

Little and pointed, squat and low — 

But, bless my heart, how that sled could go! 
Winning its owner loud acclaim, 

Gemming his deeds with joy and fame; 
Never an arrow swifter sped 
Than on to its goal the clipper sled. 

The Jenkinson hill stretched smooth and free 
(In those glorious winters that used to be), 
A speedway polished and steep and white, 
Rife with turbulent, rapt delight ; 

Ringing with laughter, jest, and shout; 

Gay with frolicking romp and rout; 

Where many a courser bold was led, 

But fleetest of all was the clipper sled. 

85 


86 


THE CLIPPER SLED 


Down from the crest with a shrill hurray 
(Clear the track, there! Out of the way!) ; 
Scarcely touching the path beneath ; 

Scarce admitting of breath to breathe; 
Dashing along, with leap and swerve, 

Over the crossing, round the curve. 

Talk of your flying-machines! Instead, 
Give me the swoop of the clipper sled. 

Edwin L. Saetn 


THE SKATER 

Beneath her skates the curved steel bars 
Seemed like two naked scimitars 
That gleam about the sandals in 
The sword dance of the Bedouin. 

And all around her flying feet 
The ice mist flew unceasingly, 

As free she was and full as fleet 
As sea-gulls skimming o’er the sea. 

It was the sea in different guise. 
Like Mercury she wore her wings, 

And deep within her fearless eyes 
There lived the soul of flying things. 

Orth Harper Stein 


87 


TOBOGGAN SONG 


Music: “Fra Diavolo ” 

To-night, how crisp the air ; 

How scintillates the star-dust! 
What sport so rich and rare, 

What sport to rub off mind-rust! 

Hurrah ! Hurrah ! 

To-night , how crisp the air! 

Hurrah ! Hurrah ! 

To-night how crisp the air! 
Og-tobog-to, to-bogganing, 
Og-tobog-to, to-bogganing, 
Og-tobog-to, to-bogganing, 

To-night how crisp the air! 

You'll hear the bogs, the bogs, the 
bogs, the b-b-b-b-b-b-bogs; 

Ha! Observatory sliding , — 

Shooting down the hill! 

To shoot, to dart, to glide, 

Down Astronomic hill-side ; 

To feel the rhythmic ride, 

Doth lift a merry flood-tide. 

88 


TOBOGGAN SONG 


89 


It fills us with a song, 

Doth this toboggan sliding ; 

Come, bear the song along. 

The frosty stars are guiding. 

Then be a passenjair 

On this toboggan night train ; 

Be blithe, be debonair, 

Be subject now to joy’s reign ! 

Brave lads and lassies fair. 

There’s poetry in living; 

Come, banish cloudy care, 

In sliding’s no misgiving. 

Horace Spencer Fiske 


A SKATER’S VALENTINE 

What if the air has a nipping tooth ! 

Our hearts beat high with the blood of youth, 
And a crystal sheet, unmarred, awaits 
The silver ring of our flashing skates. 

The peaks are white; the sky is blue; 

All that the landscape lacks is — You! 

The ice is clear; the winds are still; 

So if you’ll come, as I pray you will, 

The frosted pines of the mountainside 
Shall watch us swing and dart and glide 
Over the lake with the moon above, 

Your small hand warm in my big brown 
glove ! 

Arthur Guiterman 


90 


THE SKI-RUNNER 

Above you burns a molten-copper sun. 

Before you hangs the imminent abyss, 

Flaring in white, — a desperate game to run, 

This frozen speedway to the deeps of Dis! 

Now bend your heart and foot and spirit straight, 
That none may shrink, 

Then down, down, down the eagle takes his flight! 
Sailing an instant on the wings of Fate, 

An aeon poising on the utter brink, — 

Then out! into a wilderness of light! 

Anonymous 


91 


SKATING SONG 


As swift and light as a bird in flight 
She skims o’er the glistening lake, 

And her skates keep time in a merry chime 
To the music her red lips make ; 

Stray snowflakes fly from the frosty sky, 
Caressing her cheeks and hair ; 

While sweet and strong in a skating song 
Her voice rings on the air: 

Glow, moon, glow, 

And twinkle, stars, on high; 

Blow, winds, blow, 

As over the ice we fly, 

Blow high — blow low — 

No lass is cold 
With a lover bold, 

Heigho ! Heigho ! 

With a swinging stride I gain her side, 
And gather her hand in mine ; 

And I shout aloud to the jocund crowd 
A challenge they can’t decline. 

Hurrah for the race ! We set the pace. 
With never a slip or fall, 

And a click and a clash as our runners flash 
Far in advance of all ! 


92 


SKATING SONG 


93 


Hurrah! Well done! The race is won! 

No further the need for haste; 

Then her roguish glance betrays the chance, 
And my arm slips round her waist. 

Oh, such the delight of a winter’s night, 
When the course is rlear and long; 

And the skates keep time in a merry chime 
To the rollicking skating song: 

Glow, moon, glow, 

And twinkle, stars, on high; 

Blow, winds, blow, 

As over the ice we fly! 

Blow high — blow low — 

No lass is cold 
With a lover bold, 

Heigho ! Heigho ! 

Arthur Griscom 


SKATERS’ SONG AT NIGHT 


When glass-like glints the cracking ice 
And shines a skater’s paradise ; 

When eager air breathes keen delight, 

And diamonds dart from starlit night; 

Leave, leave your care ; 

What sport so rare ! 

“Our blades, they flash, our bodies swing, 
Like Time and birds we're on the wing ; 

The frosty stars their music sing; 

And we — we'll make the welkin ring!" 

For life’s a day — a span — a song, 

And fierce the fight ’twixt weak and strong ; 
Youth’s hour-glass swift its course doth run, 
From happy dawn till set of sun. 

To joy give way, 

While yet you may. 

Horace Spencer Fiske 


94 


THE SKATER’S SONG 


Away ! away ! our fires stream bright 
Along the frozen river; 

And their arrowy sparkles of frosty light 
On the forest branches quiver. 

Away! away! for the stars are forth, 

And on the pure snows of the valley. 

In a giddy trance, the moonbeams dance — 
Come, let us our comrades rally ! 

Away ! away ! o’er the sheeted ice, 

Away, away we go; 

On our steel-bound feet we move as fleet 
As deer o’er the Lapland snow. 

What though the sharp north winds are out, 
The skater heeds them not — 

’Midst the laugh and shout of the jocund rout, 
Gray winter is forgot. 

’Tis a pleasant sight, the joyous throng, 

In the light of the reddening flame, 

While with many a wheel on the ringing steel. 
They wage their riotous game ; 

And though the night air cutteth keen, 

And the white moon shineth coldly, 

Their homes, I ween, on the hills have been — 
They should breast the strong blast boldly. 

95 


96 THE SKATER’S SONG 

Let others choose more gentle sports, 

By the side of the winter hearth ; 

Or ’neath the lamps of the festal hall, 

Seek for their share of mirth ; 

But as for me, away! away! 

Where the merry skaters be — 

Where the fresh wind blows and the smooth ice 
glows. 

There is the place for me. 


Ephraim Peabody 


O’ER CRACKLING ICE 

Lines Written Under a French Print 
Representing Persons Skating 

O’er crackling ice, o’er gulphs profound, 
With nimble glide the skaiters play ; 
O’er treacherous pleasure’s flow’ry ground 
Thus lightly skim, and haste away. 

Samuel Johnson. 


97 


THE SNOWSHOER’S SONG 


Tighten the toque, and girdle the sash, 
Lads and lasses, the snowshoes lash; 
Ring the chorus, and start the line, 

The air is crisp and the night is fine. 
Crystal snow, dazzling glow 
Of diamond moon, the clicking shoon, 
The echoing night — Yo, ho ! 

Sparkling spire and silver fane — 

Half the journey — and home again, 

Stride we, never a tired limb, 

But breasts afire and brain a-swim. 
Crystal snow, dazzling glow 
Of diamond moon, the clicking shoon, 

The echoing night — Yo, ho ! 

Home at last! The moonbeams white 
We soon shall leave, for the golden light 
Of crackling hearth, but with a sigh, 

For our souls are full of the night and sky. 
Crystal snow, dazzling glow 
Of diamond moon, the clicking shoon, 

The echoing night — Yo, ho ! 

Joseph Nevin Doyle 


SKATING SONG 


Whisper a song as we glide along, ye pines on the 
Southern shore, 

From your branches long, where the cradle song of 
the South Wind plays no more ; 

Whisper of memories that you hold in the heart of 
your great green boughs. 

Of a Summer’s wine that was yours and mine, when 
the days were long and the nights weren’t cold ; 

Of the whispers heard, and the warm love told, and 
the old, old vows. 

Ring with the tune, Oh thou broad lagune, of my 
steel-clad shining feet, 

As I skate away to the end of day where the Twi- 
light and Moonlight meet. 

Ring with the plashes of oars that piled on your 
bosom in nights gone by, 

To a tale oft told that will ne’er grow old, tho’ the 
nights grow long and the days wax cold, 

And the ice has formed in an iron mould, o’er your 
old, old tide. 


99 


100 


SKATING SONG 


Echo a line, Oh thou stream of mine, of the song 
of thy great unrest 

To this heart of mine from that heart of thine, while 
I speed to the red-rimmed West. 

Echo of faces that used to grow on your face, ere 
the ice and rime 

Had come to frown all your ripples down: when 
your face had the blush of a sunset's glow, 

And the winds that blew weren’t the winds that 
blow in the Winter time. 

Charles Gordon Rogers. 


SHIPS OF THE NORTH 


Light graceful clouds across the sky 
Are scudding swift to-night ; 

But fleeter than yon gauze on high 
Can flaunt before the moon’s full eye, 

Our craft career their flight. 

Bold privateers, they hurry o’er 
A foamy stretch of sea, 

With cargoes loaded precious more 
Than fabled stone on ocean floor, 

Or wealth of Araby. 

Out in the stilly atmosphere 
From their gay decks are flung 
The healthy laugh, the ringing cheer, 

The mirthful notes, full, sweet, and clear, 
That fall from Beauty’s tongue. 

Adown the long inclines they glide, 

And over fields below, 

Trim vessels with the wind allied, 

The playthings of our northern pride — 
Toboggans o’er the snow. 

William Talbot Allison 
ioi 


THE SNOW-SHOE TRAIL 


Out on the open wind-swept spaces 
Of frozen lake, a whirling snow 
The waving snow-shoe trail effaces, 

But near the still and sheltered places, 

Where balsam, spruce, and larch trees grow, 
The swinging stride all Northmen know 
A vine in leaf distinctly traces, 

As it had been embroidered so 
On a white garment’s edge to flow. 

The moons of five white months have been 
The ladies of this chamber’s graces : 
November covered up the green, 

December hung the delicate laces, 

March found the chamber sweet and clean, 

The firs all folded in white cases, 

With every limb and twig between 
And all the forest’s hidden mazes 
A-glitter with the hoar-frost sheen: 

The moon of March throughout its phases 
Hung opal, pearl, and purple hazes, 

Softer than tints of Orient vases, 

Then deftly set another scene 

And rolled away the hiding screen. 

102 


THE SNOW-SHOE TRAIL 


103 


All night the maples cracked with cold ; 

The sleeper from his blanket’s fold 
Heard house-boards strain and snap their hold ; 
At dawn from every chimney flume 
Rose upright a long, feathery plume, 

The winter hearth-fire’s morning bloom. 

The sun but clears the mountain edge, 

A little veers along the ledge, 

Views a brief while our heritage, 

Then swiftly sinks upon his track, 

Loosening the twilight like a pack 
Slipped from a weary pilgrim’s back: 

But ’ere too soon his ray declines, 

A satin ribbon he unwinds 
Along the road among the pines. 

Now do his sun dogs sink from sight, 

Now sudden clouds retouch with white 
Expanses fit for Eremite, 

The Eskimo or Muscovite, 

And now the lightened galleons throw 
A thin, blue shadow on the snow. 

From orchards of Hesperides, 

Out of the farthest fringe of trees, 

Swift from her golden draperies, 

The moon glides through her star-filled seas. 
High on her arc, where thickly clung 
The paling stars she rides among, 

The polar banners far upflung 


THE SNOW-SHOE TRAIL 


104 

Crackle like chords too tensely strung 
And fade into another day, 

True to the sun dog’s promise gray 
And late in coming up this way. 

Four feet of ice bind fast the lake, 

Five feet of snow enfold the land : 

Along the trail, on either hand, 

Thrust down the staff and soundings take 
Of this white deep upon whose bed 
Submerged, rests many a hidden boulder; 
There fallen trees are thickly spread. 
There silenced brooks, in secret fed, 
Keep rights of way with no beholder 
’Til spring unbind this watershed. 

Shift the pack basket on the shoulder 
And tighter draw the snow-shoe lashing ! 

Then through the portal lightly tread 
Into the templed tamarack slashing! 

Here sun and moon and stars, in turn, 
Look down along the roofless wall, 

Whiter than any marble urn 
In which unfettered fountains fall, 

Where now the tropic sun rays bum. 
Gilding the ripening orange ball, 

And last year’s fledgling robins learn 
The long flight through spring’s festival. 
There through the open window floats 


THE SNOW-SHOE TRAIL 


105 


The tumult pouring from the throats 
Of mocking birds in live oak cotes, 

And over the salt marshes creep 
Slow tides along the sea wall steep, 

The breathing of the gulf in sleep. 

But here no courier of the spring, 

Save the witch hobble blossoming 
In casements where the icicles cling, 

Gives challenge to the winter king. 

Earth tilts and turns and leaves unshaken 
The enduring dynasty of the frost ; 

While man-made realms are won or lost, 
His mountain stronghold stands untaken. 

Before his breath, spring’s gentle host 
Of blossoms, longing to awaken, 

Perish before his scarp is crossed ; 

And the poor flags of summer’s troop, 
Thrust feebly forward, faint and droop. 


From boulder down to boulder leaping, 

The brook eludes gray winter’s grasp, 

But soon returns into his keeping, 

And yielding, stiffens in his clasp. 

Close by the spring no cold has sealed. 

From the earth-mother warm up-gushing, 
Where clustered pines afford a shield 

Against the sudden snow squall’s rushing, 
With snow-shoe shovel, clear a space 


106 THE SNOW-SHOE TRAIL 

From the dry snow for camp fire place ! 

On the bare ground the light wood heaping, 
Upon it fagots interlace, 

And when the blaze through all is creeping, 
And hot flames, dancing, scorch the face, 

From the toboggan fetch the kettle, 

The broiler, meat, and coffee pot ! 

Make of the log and furs a settle, 

Whither the fire smoke wanders not ! 

Salt the good broth and sip it hot, 

And keep the cook upon his mettle ! 

Let not the fragrant pot boil over! 

One whiff and then replace the cover! 

A brief while round the camp fire hover ! 

A brief rest on the soft snow cot 
And weariness is clean forgot. 


The compass points the way ahead 
When all the trails lie behind us; 

The hours of light will soon be sped ; 

Will good friends sally forth to find us, 
Should darkness in the forest bind us? 
Already deepening shades remind us 
Of the night’s peril left unsaid, 

But real though it be unspoken. 

So speed the pace ! A snow-shoe broken, 
Night’s bitter cold! And men have trod 
In circles, died and left no token 


THE SNOW-SHOE TRAIL 


107 


Til spring revealed a lifeless clod. 

Whistle the dogs back ! With eyes blinking, 
Back at the summons they come slinking, 
Silent the bark of late so loud. 

And crawl to heel and cringe and whine. 

In lip and tongue the sharp quills sinking, 
Caught from the armored porcupine. 

Thenceforth at every stride we take, 

Like rudders in the vessel’s wake, 

They swing along the trail we make, 

Til over eager in the pace, 

They mar the snow-shoe’s pleasing grace 
And trip their master on his face. 

Here tracks in sweeping curves meander 

And cease where pheasant spread his wing 
Into the trackless air to wander, 

On earth again alighting yonder 

Within the hobble bushes’ ring; 

And here across the forest aisle. 

Where low the spruce and balsam swing, 
The fox went by an hour ago, 

And here he turned to hark awhile, 

And from the branches whisked the snow, 
Missing the hare, which loping low 
Found shelter in the brushwood pile. 

On the steep way our steps are wending, 
Dark grows the forest’s green and white. 


io8 THE SNOW-SHOE TRAIL 

Now all the woodland gloom is blending 
With deeper shades influng by night. 

High overhead the roar and rending 
Of wind-tossed branches speed our flight, 

Down to the mountain’s base descending, 
Until we near the long trail’s ending, 

And from the valley, still and white, 

Flashes a welcome village light. 


Clear to the door with shriek and bellow 
The storm’s outrider dashes up. 

Ho! ho! Bold rider, jolly fellow, 

Wilt drink with us a stirrup cup 
To make thy boisterous laugh more mellow? 

He hurries on ; he cannot stay. 

Then pile the logs upon the fire 
And raise the window curtain higher 
To light the roysterer on his way! 

Hear all the crazy tree tops shaking, 

Before his breath bent near to breaking ! 

And now a mighty leap he’s making 
Across the valley, takes a tumble 
And rends his robe of fleece in wrath, 

Flings wide its fragments o’er his path 
And laughs aloud to see men stumble 
Through drifts piled high by doorways humble, 
At midnight makes the windows rattle, 

Then through the mountain gap with roar 


THE SNOW-SHOE TRAIL 

Like that of guns rolled out to battle, 

O’er lowland hamlets, towns a score, 

O’er greening farms with scurrying cattle, 
Rushes on toward the ocean shore, 

Lashes the sea to many a billow 
And dies upon its stormy pillow. 

Isaac Rusling Pennypacker 


109 


TEACHING A GIRL TO SKATE 


Oh, there’s nothing in all the world so fine 
As teaching a girl to skate : 

There’s the going up to her house to dine, 

And the taking her home quite late ; 

There’s the clamping of skates on her dainty shoes. 
And it takes so long a while 
That she calls you several times a “goose” — 

And you do not make denial. 

There’s the frightened grasp of her hand, in haste, 
And her dear little shrieks and calls ; 

There’s the putting your arm round her slender 
waist, 

And the picking her up when she falls. 

Thomas Winthrop Hall 


no 


THE SNOWSHOER 


Under the moon and the stars, 

And over the round, white hill, 

The snowshoer, singing, strides, 

And the heart of the world lies. 

The north-lights flash in the north 
Like Olaf’s cloak, tossed red; 

The drifts are molded and white 
Like the grave-clothes of the dead. 

But the trapper, Pierre Letonne, 
Sings, as he hurries along; 

And a little wind in the spruces 
Mimics his lilted song. 

“Eyes like the heart of the sea, 
Hands like the foam on the shore — 

Oh, sweet, my queen, Vivette, 

Do not wait for me at the door?” 

A cry comes out of the stillness, 

But the lover gives no heed. 

“’Vivette, the trail’s merry, 

For I follow where kisses lead ! 

“The miles slip by, forgotten, 

For you, and the town are there ; 


1 12 


THE SNOWSHOER 


The warmth of the high, red windows — 
The warmth of your golden hair.” 

A cry comes out of the forest. 

The snowshoer turns his head. 

He sees the long, white drifts 
Like the grave-clothes of the dead; 

And he hears, at the edge of the wood, 
Mingled, and mad, and shrill, 

The cry of the great gray wolves — 

The wolves who gather to kill. 

The snowshoer bends and runs 
And his brave lips shape a prayer 

He thinks of the warm, red windows. 
And the sheen of her regal hair. 

He prays for her dear, white hands, 

And her eyes, like the heart of the sea. 

The gray wolves leap, and leap 

And the north-lights clash in their glee ! 

Under the moon and the stars, 

His brave song rings no more; 

The lights at the windows are dead 
And a shadow comes to the door. 

Theodore Roberts. 


SHE SKATES ALONE 


She skates alone, and swift as swallows fl y 
She skims and glides until she seems a shy, 

Fleet winter nymph, for whose bewitching sake 
The frosty gnomes the glittering mirrors make 
All glassy smooth. And ah ! a yearnsome sigh 
Escapes from scores of swains, who far and nigh 
To win the slightest notice vainly try, 

With fancy curves and fine, as o’er the lake, 
She skates alone. 

But ah! they fail that with her muff would vie 
To hold her hand. They little dream that I 

Alone the place of warming furs may take, 
And merely sit upon the shore and shake 
Because I never skate — and that is why 
She skates alone. 

Philip Verrill Mighels 


CURLING SONG 


The music o’ the year is hush’d 
In bonny glen and shaw, man ; 

And winter spreads o’er nature dead 
A winding sheet o’ snaw, man. 

O’er burn and loch, the warlock frost, 

A crystal brig has laid, man ; 

The wild geese screaming wi’ surprise, 
The ice-bound wave ha’e fled, man, 

Up, curler, frae your bed sae warm, 

And leave your coaxing wife, man! 

Gae get your besom, tramps, and stanes, 
And join the friendly strife, man. 

For on the water’s face are met, 

Wi’ mony a merry joke, man, 

The tenant and his jolly laird, 

The pastor and his flock, man. 

The rink is swept, the tees are mark’d, 
The bonspeil is begun, man ; 

The ice is true, the stanes are keen, 
Huzza, for glorious fun, man ! 

The skips are standing at the tee, 


CURLING SONG 


ii5 


To guide the eager game, man ; 

Hush, not a word, but mark the broom, 
And tak’ a steady aim, man : 

There draw a shot, there lay a guard, 

And here beside him lie, man; 

Now let him feel a gamester’s hand, 

Now in his bosom die, man ; 

Then fill the port, and block the ice, 

We sit upon the tee, man ; 

Now tak’ this in-ring, sharp and neat, 

And mak’ their winner flee, man. 

How stands the game ? It’s eight and eight 
Now for the winning shot, man ; 

Draw slow and sure, and tak’ your aim, 

I’ll sweep you to the spot, man. 

The stane is thrown, it glides along, 

The besoms ply it in, man ; 

Wi’ twisting back the player stands, 

And eager, breathless grin, man. 

A moment’s silence, still as death, 

Pervades the anxious thrang, man, 

When sudden bursts the victor’s shout. 
With holla’s loud and lang, man. 

Triumphant besoms wave in air, 

And friendly banters fly, man ; 


ii6 


CURLING SONG 


Whilst, cold and hungry, to the inn, 

Wi* eager steps they hie, man. 

Now fill ae bumper, fill but ane, 

And drink wi’ social glee, man, 

May curlers on life’s slippery rink, 

Frae cruel rubs be free, man ; 

Or should a treacherous bias lead 
Their erring course ajee, man, 

Some friendly in-ring may they meet, 
To guide them to the tee, man. 

Henry Duncan 


OF SKATING 

She’s just at my back, and 
She sees me, I’m certain. 

I’ll show I’m a crack hand ; 

She’s just at my back, and — 
But something goes crack, and 
I’d best draw the curtain ; 
She’s just at my back, and 
She sees me, I’m certain. 
Coulson Kernahan 


ii 7 


THE WOLF HUNT 


Over the hills on a winter’s morn, 

In the rosy glow of a day just born, 

With the eager hounds so fleet and strong, 
On the gray wolf’s track we jog along. 

* * * * * 

Closely scanning with anxious eyes 
The snowy crest of each rocky rise, 
Stealthily on in the morning air, 

The gray wolf seeks his rocky lair. 

Back from the spoils of a midnight raid, 
Red are his jaws from the feast he made ; 
But, cunning as ever, he glances round 
And sniffs the snow on the frozen ground. 

And now he stops and glances back 
On the crooked windings of his track ; 
For, softly on the breeze has come 
A scent that makes his fierce heart numb. 


118 


THE WOLF HUNT 


119 


He also hears the crushing sound 
Of trampling hoofs on the frozen ground, 
And off he starts in sudden fear ; 

His instinct tells him foes are near. 

And run thou must the Bad Lands o’er 
As thou hast never run before ; 

For like the wind o’er hill and brake, 
Grim Death comes dashing in thy wake. 

And now the hounds are in full sight, 

All eager for the coming fight, 

Urged on by many a lusty cheer 
From mounted hunters in the rear. 

Foremost in the chase comes Fly, 

Like meteor flashing through the sky ; 
Then neck to neck and nose to nose, 
Brace, Sport, and Pedro swiftly close 
The intervening space that’s spread 
Between them and the wolf ahead. 

While each one eager for the race, 

And old Don bravely setting pace, 

Bob and Queenie, Prince and White, 
Speed swiftly in the morning light ; 
Their motto is to do or die, 

And nought but blood will satisfy. 


120 


THE WOLF HUNT 


Foot by foot and yard by yard, 

With waning strength and breathing hard, 
The wolf is swiftly losing ground ; 

He feels the breath of the leading hound; 
His fierce jaws snap, his eye-balls glare, 

He struggles hard in mad despair. 

* * * * * 

The race is o’er — the battle won, 

The wolf lies dying in the sun ; 

His midnight raids are of the past, 

He’s met the conquering foe at last. 

Well done, brave hounds ! Your savage prey 
Was shrewdly caught and killed to-day. 

Wallace David Coburn 


THE OLD PINE TREE 


Dedicated to the St. George Snowshoe Club 

“Listen, my child,” said the old pine tree, to the lit- 
tle one nestling near, 

“For the storm clouds troop together to-night, and 
the wind of the north I hear; 

And perchance there may come some echo of the 
music of long ago, 

The music that rang when the White Host sang, 
marching across the snow.” 

“Up and away. Saint George! up thro’ the moun- 
tain gorge, 

Over the plain where the tempest blows, and the 
great white flakes are flying 

Down the long narrow glen ! faster my merry men, 

Follow the trail, tho* the shy moon hides, and deeply 
the drifts are lying.” 

“Ah ! mother,” the little pine tree replied, “you are 
dreaming again to-night 

Of ghostly visions and phantom forms that forever 
mock your sight; 

121 


122 


THE OLD PINE TREE 


Tis true the moan of the winter wind comes to my 
list’ning ear 

But the White Host, marching, I cannot see, and 
their music I cannot hear.” 


“When the northern skies were all aflame where the 
trembling banners swung, 

When up in the vaulted heavens the moon of the 
Snow Shoe hung, 

When the hurricane swept the hillside, and the 
crested drifts ran high 

Those were the nights,” said the old pine tree, “the 
great White Host marched by.” 


And the storm grew fiercer, fiercer, and the snow 
went hissing past, 

But the little pine tree still listened, till she heard 
above the blast 

The music her mother loved to hear in the nights of 
the long ago 

And saw in the forest the white-clad Host — march- 
ing across the snow ! 


And loud they sang as they tramped along of the 
glorious bygone days 

When valley and hill re-echoed the snowshoer’s 
hymn of praise 


THE OLD PINE TREE 


123 

Till the sky moon gazed down smiling, and the 
north wind paused to hear 

And the old pine tree felt young again as the little 
one nestling near. 

“Up and away, Saint George! up thro* the moun- 
tain gorge. 

Over the plain where the tempest blows, and the 
great white flakes are flying. 

Down the long narrow glen ! faster my merry men. 

Follow the trail, tho’ the shy moon hides, and deeply 
the drifts are lying.” 

William Henry Drummond 


WINTER UPLANDS 


The frost that stings like fire upon my cheek, 
The loneliness of this forsaken ground, 

The long white drift upon whose powdered peak 
I sit in the great silence as one bound ; 

The rippled sheet of snow where the wind blew 
Across the open fields for miles ahead ; 

The far-off city, towered and roofed in blue, 

A tender line upon the western red ; 

The stars that singly, then in flocks appear. 

Like jets of silver from the violet dome, 

So wonderful, so many and so near, 

And then the golden moon to light me home — 
The crunching snowshoes and the stinging air. 
And silence, frost and beauty everywhere. 

Archibald Lampman 


WINTER NOCTURNE 

With me is revelry and light, 

A wind-blown world of circling rink ; 
With me is music and the clink 
Of frosty steel on crackling ice ; 

With me the sweet seductive sight 
Of gliding figures that entice 
The watcher to pursue their flight 
Through mazy whirls, alertly tense, 

To steal swift passage left and right, 

All thought o’erwhelmed in giddy sense. 
With me is revelry and light — 

With thee, the silence and the night. 

Bernard Freeman Trotter. 


125 


THAT HOCKEY GAME 


What is that noise that rings out clear, 
That sound of hearty cheers, 

That conies across the smooth, black ice 
To greet our listening ears? 

Two teams have stepped into the rink ; 

Their object is the same — 

To fight and struggle hard to win 
This dashing hockey game. 

Into the rink the umpire steps, 

The captains choose their goal; 

They then line up, to do or die 
They’ll strive with all their soul. 

“All ready ! Go !” the umpire shouts ; 

“They’re off!” the watchers cry. 

Ah, yes, they’re off in the mad race 
To win the victory. 

Up, down, across, a pass, a shoot, 

A goal ? No — just a miss. 

“Come, boys, brace up,” the captain cries ; 

Was e’er a game like this ! 

The whistle blows ; the half is o’er ; 

No score for either side; 

Both captains urge their breathless teams 
To win, what e’er betide. 

126 


THAT HOCKEY GAME 


127 


The puck’s replaced, they face it off, 

It’s passed on to an end, 

And up the ice he skates like mad, 

While they the goal defend. 

The cover-point steps out — he’s passed, 

And on they skate once more ; 

Just one more man — he stops the puck: 

They lose a chance to score. 

“Five minutes more,” the timer calls. 

“Five minutes more to play ! 

“We must ‘buck up,’ and make a goal, 

“Or we shall lose the day.” 

So thinks the captain — for response 
The puck comes — in a trice 

He’s panting, dodging, scrambling, 

Fighting onward up the ice. 

At last he spies a narrow hole 
Outside the goal keep’s skate, 

Just wide enough, — for it he shoots 
Before it be too late. 

Straight through darts on the well-aimed puck — 
“A goal!” all loud exclaim; 

On the captain’s brow the laurel rests 
Of that dashing hockey game. 

E. C. Potter, Jr. 


SNOWSHOEING SONG 


Hilloo, hilloo, hilloo, hilloo ! 

Gather, gather, ye men in white; 

The winds blow keenly, the moon is bright, 
The sparkling snow lies firm and white; 
Tie on the shoes, no time to lose, 

We must be over the hill to-night. 

Hilloo, hilloo, hilloo, hilloo ! 

Swiftly in single file we go, 

The city is soon left far below, 

Its countless lights like diamonds glow; 
And as we climb, we hear the chime 
Of church bells stealing o’er the snow. 

Hilloo, hilloo, hilloo, hilloo ! 

Like winding-sheet about the dead, 

O’er hill and dale the snow is spread, 
And silences our hurried tread ; 

The pines bend low, and to and fro 
The maples toss their boughs o’er head. 

Hilloo, hilloo, hilloo, hilloo ! 

We laugh to scorn the angry blast, 

The mountain top is gained and past. 

128 


SNOWSHOEING SONG 


129 


Descent begins, ’tis ever fast — 

One short quick run, and toil is done. 

We reach the welcome inn at last. 

Shake off, shake off the clinging snow ; 
Unloose the shoe, the sash untie; 

Fling toque and mittens lightly by; 

The chimney fire is blazing high, 

And, richly stored, the festive board 
Awaits the merry company. 

Remove the fragments of the feast ! 

The steaming coffee, waiter, bring. 

Now tell the tale, the chorus sing, 

And let the laughter loudly ring; 

Here’s to the host, drink down the toast, 
Then up ! for time is on the wing. 

Hilloo, hilloo, hilloo, hilloo ! 

The moon' is sinking out of sight, 

Across the sky dark clouds take flight, 
And dimly looms the mountain height; 
Tie on the shoes, no time to lose, 

We must be home again to-night. 

Arthur Weir 


THE VOYAGEUR 


Dere's something stirrin , ma blood to-night, 
On de night of de young new year, 

W'ile de camp is warm an' de fire is bright, 
An’ de bottle is close at han' — 

Out on de reever de nort' win' blow, 

Down on de valley is pile de snow, 

But w'at do we care so long we know 
We're safe on de log cabane? 

Drink to de healt' of your wife an’ girl, 
Anoder wan for your frien’, 

Den geev’ me a chance, for on all de worl' 
I've not many frien' to spare — 

I'm bom, w'ere de mountain scrape de sky, 
An' bone of ma fader an' moder lie, 

So I fill de glass an' I raise it high 
An' drink to de Voyageur. 

For dis is de night of de Jour de l'An, 

W'en de man of de Grand Nor' Wes' 

T'ink of hees home on de St. Laurent, 

An' frien’ he may never see — 

Gone he is now, an' de beeg canoe 
No more you’ll see wit’ de red-shirt crew, 
But long as he leev' he was alway' true, 

So we'll drink to hees memory. 

130 


THE VOYAGEUR 


Ax’ heem de nort’ win’ w’at he see 
Of de Voyageur long ago, 

An’ he’ll say to you w’at he say to me, 
So lissen hees story well — 

“I see de track of hees botte sau-vage 
On many a hill an’ long portage 
Far, far away from hees own vill-age 
An’ soun’ of de parish bell — 


“I never can play on de Hudson Bay 
Or mountain dat lie between 
But I meet heem singin’ hees lonely way 
De happies’ man I know — 

I cool hees face as he’s sleepin’ dere 
Under de star of de Red Riviere, 

An’ off on de home of de great w’ite bear, 
I’m seem’ hees dog traineau. 


“De woman an* chil’ren’s runnin’ out 
On de wigwam of de Cree — 

De leetle papoose dey laugh an’ shout 
W’en de soun’ of hees voice dey hear — 
De oldes’ warrior of de Sioux 
Kill hese’f dancin’ de w’ole night t’roo, 
An de Black foot girl remember too 
De ole tarn Voyageur. 


I3 2 


THE VOYAGEUR 


“De blaze of hees camp on de snow I see, 

An' I lissen hees ‘En Roulant’ 

On de Ian’ w’ere de reindeer travel free, 
Ringin’ out strong an’ clear — 

Often de grey wolf sit before 
De light is come from hees open door, 

An’ caribou foller along de shore 
De song of de Voyageur. 

“If he only kip goin’, de red ceinture, 

I’d see it upon de Pole 
Some mornin’ I’m startin’ upon de tour 
For blowin’ de worl’ aroun’ — 

But w’erever he sail an’ w’erever he ride, 

De trail is long an’ de trail is wide, 

An’ city an’ town on ev’ry side 
Can tell of hees campin’ groun’.” 

So dat’s de reason I drink to-night 
To de man of de Grand Nor’ Wes’, 

For hees heart was young, an’ hees heart was 
light 

So long as he’s leevin’ dere — 

I’m proud of de sam’ blood in my vein 
I’m a son of de Nort’ Win’ wance again — 

So we’ll fill her up till de bottle’s drain 
An’ drink to de Voyageur! 

William Henry Drummond 


FROM “THE LUGGIE” 


Now underneath the ice the Luggie growls, 

And to the polished smoothness curlers come 
Rudely ambitious. Then for happy hours 
The clinking stones are slid from wary hands, 
And Barleycorn, best wine for surly airs, 

Bites i’ the mouth, and ancient jokes are cracked. 
And of, the journey homeward, when the sun 
Low-rounding to the west, in ruddy glow 
Sinks large, and all the amber-skirted clouds, 
His flaming retinue, with darkening glow 
Diverge ! The broom is brandished as the sign 
Of conquest, and impetuously they boast 
Of how this shot was played — with what a bend 
Peculiar — the perfection of all art — 

That stone came rolling grandly to the Tee 
With victory crowned, and flinging wide the 
rest 

In lordly crash ! 

David Gray 


133 


WINTER NIGHTS 


Now winter nights enlarge 
The number of their hours ; 

And clouds their storms discharge 
Upon the airy towers. 

Let now the chimneys blaze, 

And cups o’erflow with wine, 

Let well-tuned words amaze 
With harmony divine! 

Now yellow waxen lights 
Shall wait on honey love, 

While youthful revels, masques, and 
courtly sights, 

Sleep’s leaden spells remove. 

This time doth well dispense 
With lovers’ long discourse ; 

Much speech hath some defense, 
Though beauty no remorse. 

All do not all things well: 

Some measures comely tread, 

Some knotted riddles tell, 

Some poems smoothly read. 

The summer hath his joys, 

And winter his delights; 

Though love and all his pleasures 
are but toys, 

They shorten tedious nights. 

Thomas Campion 
134 


ALL HAIL TO A NIGHT 


“All hail to a night when the stars stand bright 
Like gold-dust in the sky ; 

With a crisp track long, and an old-time song 
And the old-time company.” 

“All hail to a night when the Northern light 
A welcome to us waves; 

Then the snow-shoer goes o’er the ice and the snows, 
And the frost and the tempest braves!” 

“The snow-shoer's tent is the firmament, 

His breath the rush of the breeze. 

Earth’s loveliest sprite, the Frost Queen at night, 
Lures him silvery through the trees.” 

“Yes, the snow-shoer’s queen is Winter serene, 
We meet her in the glade ; 

Dark-blue-eyed, a fair, pale bride 
In her jewelled veil arrayed.” 

“Let us up then and toast to the uttermost, 

Fair Winter ! We Knights of the Shoe ; 

And in circle again join hearts with the men 
That of old-time toasted her too!” 

W. D. Lighthall 


135 


SONGS OF THE CANADIAN WINTER 


Down the St. Lawrence winter storms begin, 
Deep, deep the snows, and hard the frost sets in; 
The smaller streamlets first to cease to flow, 

And often buried in the drifted snow. 

The “habitant,” with capote snug and warm, 
Drives his rude sleigh, and battles with the storm; 
His smart, small palfreys gallop gayly by 
The well-filled barns that near the road may lie; 
He pours his patois French in ditties gay, 

And love or war beguiles the whitened way. 

He bears the produce of his native soil, 

Wrung from its surface by his summer’s toil, 

To swell the commerce of St. Lawrence shore, 
Waiting till spring shall melt its waves once more. 

Yet still the city scenes of Winter’s reign 
Rival his blast upon the rural plain; 

And sleighs of varied tint, and every form, 

Are driven with speed, despite the bickering storm. 
The merry bells, of varied size and tone, 

Give music of a kind that’s all their own. 

Beauty and fashion, clad in warm attire, 

Glide o’er the snow, and sometimes through the 
mire. 

What rare delight the youths and maidens find 

Through the gay streets in Winter’s chilly wind; 

136 


SONGS OF THE CANADIAN WINTER 137 

Or when the sun’s bright glistening glory shines 
Along the streets, in varied coloured lines, 

Each turn, each angle, shows some new delight 
In the bright sunshine, or the twinkling night; 

And many a tale of truthful love is told, 

That summer’s suns shall afterwards unfold. 

Yet winter here gives blither scenes than these, 
Which age and youth and childhood even can please. 
O’er the smooth surface of the icy plain, 

Where danger never lurks in pleasure’s train ; 

Here youthful forms can quickly turn or glide, 

And quick traverse the rink from side to side ; 
Here tender maidens, with their steel-shod feet, 
Can on the ice their beaux and gallants meet, 

And on some nights of carnival and fun, 

To the soft music through the waltzes run, 

And blithely beat their limbs to time and tune, 
Under the gentle glimpses of the moon; 

And down the dance most nimbly trip the fair, 
Embreathing health from Winter’s frosty air. 
Even childhood here its tiny limbs can ply, 

And o’er the ice its lightsome form can fly, 

And weave its gambols on the frozen plain, 

And to the nurse’s care return again. 

And this same scene allows the grey-haired Scot 
O’er the same plain to send the curling shot, 


138 SONGS OF THE CANADIAN WINTER 


And here renew the game his native clime 
Rejoiced to witness in his youthful prime; 

Send chiselled stones athwart the slippery floor, 
And count with keenness each successful score ; 

And to the game to give a keener zest, 

Call distant rinks to come and try their best. 

And side by side, in friendly contest keen, 

Scots from, far distant rinks may here be seen 
Watching the stone along the slippery way, 
Sweeping with broom to give it fairer play; 

And crown the contest o’er with feast and song, 
And cheerful mirth to morning hours prolong. 

And there are rinks that crowd the frosted plain, 
With revels brought from Italy or Spain, 

Where male and female masked, and in attire 
Of fancied characters, will even aspire 
To ape the antics of barbaric times, 

And don habiliments of foreign climes, 

Disguised as mandarin, Turk, or bearded Jew, 

Like queen or shepherdess ; — their costumes, too, 

So well arranged that none can ever know 
Which is the belle or which the gallant beau. 

Some dressed like devil, some like knight or squire, 
Some like a dragon breathing mimic fire; 

Some may be seen like Hamlet, dressed in black, 
And bold Don Quixote — Sancho at his back; 

And wilder still, to give surprise a shock, 


SONGS OF THE CANADIAN WINTER 139 


One skated round just like a cabbage stock. 

With such-like capers here the slippery stage 
Mocks the historic and histrionic page. 

Still there are some who seek for wider play, 

And dare the dangers of the frozen bay. 

Some in the ice-boat, as its sails expand. 

Will shun the safety of the solid land, 

And swiftly skim along the hardened wave, 

And all its dangers for amusement brave; 

And with advantage of a favouring wind, 

Will leave the swiftest skater far behind; 

Steering and tacking with consummate skill. 

Make the light bark obedient to their will. 

The icy field may crack and groan and roar, 

Still will they leave the safety of the shore, 

And sit at ease, though driven with matchless speed, 
Far from a helping hand in time of need. 

Such are the schemes by which we cheat the time 
Of winter in this cold Canadian clime, 

And many of our pleasure-seekers sigh 
When winter and its games have glided by ; 

And some will languish in the warmest day 
For the cold capers of the frozen bay. 

The wondrous bridge of tubes presents a scene 
In winter, down the rapids of Lachine, 

Where blocks on blocks of ice confusedly pile, 


140 SONGS OF THE CANADIAN WINTER 

And graze the shores of each romantic isle. 

The Isle of Nuns, the Isle of Devils there 
Are each encased, and each must take its share 
Of rude embraces from the hardened wave, 

Which the warm summers gently round them lave, 
And beat the river’s banks on either side, 

Where the rude rapids rush to meet the tide. 

But where the river widens out below, 

The levelled waters there more gently flow. 

In winter there’s a large and icy space, 

Where teams can travel at the swiftest pace; 
Taverns are built, and huckster stands are piled 
With various products, in the winter wild, 

Culled from the garden or the autumn field, 

Or what the cooks or baker shops can yield. 
Liquors and wines, and ales and beers are there, 
With all the sequents of a country fair, 

Heaped in confusion on the hardened brim, 

Where but a team can drive or skate can skim. 

James K. Liston 


THE SKATERS 


Far in the West the dead day’s pyre, 
Between the spaces of the wood, 
Burned low — a dusky, sullen fire — 
Beneath the twilight’s gathering hood. 
But quivering in the dusk an gray 

One star, that softly grew more bright, 
Gleamed like a promise of the night 
Above the embers of the day. 

Before us lay the glassy stream, 

A crystal path from shore to shore, 
That seemed to hold it in a dream — 

O limpid, laughing tides of yore! 

And still, in memory of June, 

The star reflected held a place, 

While glimmered o’er its frozen face, 
The whiteness of the rising moon. 

With flashing feet we sped away 
Along the silent, snow-clad shore, 

That, gleaming in the moonlight, lay 
Where swift our shadows ran before ! 
But though the shore was still and white, 
No summer song was e’er more sweet 
Than that clear music which our feet 
Sent ringing to the winter’s night ! 


THE SKATERS 


We felt the rushing wind go by, 

As round some bend with quickening stride 
We swept, and heard the pine-boughs sigh 
That leaned across the frozen tide ; 

Until the ever-broadening stream 

Stretched straight before to meet the bay. 
That in the magic moonlight lay 
In silver silence, all a-dream ! 

And when at last we homeward turned 
With eager, yet reluctant feet, 

Our pulses glowed, our faces burned, 

And life felt buoyant, strong and sweet ! 
Within the house one beacon-light 
Its vigil kept ; within the grate 
The fire burned low — the hour was late — 
But health’s best sleep was ours that night ! 

Charles Gordon Rogers 


A WINTER SONG FOR THE SLEIGH 


Hurrah for the forest — the wild pine-wood forest ! 
The sleigh-bells are jingling with musical chime ; 
The still woods are ringing, 

As gaily we’re singing, 

Oh, merry it is in the cold winter time ! 

Hurrah for the forest — the dark pine-wood forest! 
With the moon stealing down on the cold sparkling 
snow ; 

When with hearts beating lightly, 

And eyes beaming brightly, 

Thro’ the wild forest by moonlight we go. 

Hurrah for the forest — the dark waving forest ! 
Where silence and stillness for ages have been ; 
We’ll rouse the grim bear, 

And the wolf from his lair, 

And the deer shall start up from his thick cedar 
screen. 

Oh, wail for the forest — the proud stately forest! 
No more its dark depths shall the hunter explore; 
For the bright golden grain 
Shall wave free o’er the plain, 

Oh, wail for the forest ! — its glories are o’er ! 

Mrs. C. P. Traill 


143 


SKATING SONG 

Fresh the breeze, the morning bright! 

Come, join the merrily laughing throng; 

The sunbeams dance on th’ glistening ice, 

The while our voices blend in song. 

Swiftly gliding, darting to and fro, 

Like to the fleeting wind, over the ice we go! 

The life that’s in the freshening breeze 
Gives to our cheeks a brighter glow ; 

And hearts are warm with keen delight, 
Though all around is wrapped in snow. 

Swiftly gliding, darting to and fro, 

Like to the fleeting wind, over the ice we go ! 

H. H. Furness, Jr. 


144 


CHRISTMAS IN THE OLDEN TIME 


On Christmas-eve the bells were rung ; 

The damsel donned her kirtle sheen ; 

The hall was dressed with holly green ; 
Forth to the wood did merry men go, 

To gather in the mistletoe. 

Thus opened wide the baron’s hall 
To vassal, tenant, serf and all; 

Power laid his rod of rule aside 
And ceremony doffed his pride. 

The heir, with roses in his shoes, 

That night might village partner choose; 

The lord, underogating, share 

The vulgar game of “Post and Pair.” 

All hailed, with uncontrolled delight, 

And general voice, the happy night 
That to the cottage, as the crown, 

Brought tidings of salvation down. 

The fire, with well-dried logs supplied, 
Went roaring up the chimney wide; 

The huge hall-table’s oaken face, 

Scrubbed till it shone, the day to grace, 
Bore then upon its massive board 
No mark to part the squire and lord. 

Then was brought in the lusty brawn 
By old blue-coated serving man; 

Then the grim boar’s head frowned on high, 
i45 


146 CHRISTMAS IN THE OLDEN TIME 


Crested with bays and rosemary. 

Well can the green-garbed ranger tell 
How, when and where the monster fell; 
What dogs before his death he tore. 

And all the baitings of the boar. 

The wassal round, in good brown bowls, 
Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls. 
There the huge sirloin reeked : hard by 
Plum-porridge stood, and Christmas pye; 
Nor failed old Scotland to produce, 

At such high-tide, her savory goose. 

Then came the merry maskers in, 

And carols roared with blithesome din. 

If unmelodious was the song, 

It was a hearty note, and strong ; 

Who lists may in their murmuring see 
Traces of ancient mystery; 

White shirts supplied the masquerade, 

And smutted cheeks the visors made; 

But O, what maskers richly dight, 

Can boast of bosoms half so light ! 

England was “merry England” when 
Old Christmas brought his sports again ; 
’Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale, 
’Twas Christmas told the merriest tale; 

A Christmas gambol oft would cheer 
The poor man’s heart through half the year. 

Walter Scott 


BILIN’ SAP 


You boys all know how in the airly spring — 
Wal, say about the time the bluebird comes — 
How ’tis the groun’ begins ter thaw an’ freeze 
Along the sunny slopes beside the woods, 

An* how the sap goes creepin’ up by day 
Inter the limbs an’ shoots upon the trees, 

An’ how the cold at night will send it back 
Agin a-racin’ down into the roots 
Ter keep all snug an’ warm till mornin’ comes 
The snow ain’t gone ’cept here an’ there a bit 
Upon the hills that look all bare an’ burnt — 
Wal, jest about this time it gits ter look 
Like sugarin’. So when the wind comes right, 
An’ it will freeze by night an’ thaw by day, 

Then boys look out fur jest a rush o’ sap. 

’Tis then we git the spouts an’ buckets out, 

An’ set the camp. I tell you what, ’tis fun 
This tappin’ trees, sendin’ the gleamin’ bit 
Inter the wood, seein’ the shavin’s creep 
Out on the steel, an’ fall upon the snow, 

Wet with the lifeblood o’ the mighty tree; 

An’ then ter see the sap come spurtin’ out 
As bright an’ sparklin’ as the mornin’ dew, 

An’ then ter hear it drop inter the pail 
As skiddy as an old-time wooden clock — 

A kinder sayin’, drink, drink, drink. 

i47 


148 


BILIN' SAP 


When sap has been a-runnin' for a week 
Right smart — that is, it does not run much nights — 
The storage tubs an' pans git brimmin' full 
An’ runnin' over, too, an’ then the boys 
Go up ter camp ter bile the sap at night. 

They git a peck o' apples from the bin, 

Some but'nuts an’ some ches'nuts from upstairs, 
An’ then they start up to the sugarhouse. 

The moon is mebbe three hours high by then 
An’ jest a-smilin’ out her purtiest, 

Turnin' the snow to sparklin' diamonds 
An' makin’ gloomy shadows 'hind the trees. 

The sugarhouse looks cheerfuller than home 
With its great fire a-glowin' in the arch, 

An' steam a-streamin' out through every crack. 
Wal, fust they set ter work ter fill the pan 
An' git the fire to goin' good an' hot, 

An' then they spread some blankets on the floor 
Before the glowin' arch where it is warm, 

An' set down for a feast an’ story tell, 

An' sech tales as them country boys can tell! 
Stories of Injun fightin’ on the plains, 

An' huntin' grizzlies on the mountain wilds, 

An' trackin' antelopes across the snow, 

With jungle tales an' stories o' the East, 

Of buried treasures in the mountain side, 

An' pirate raids upon the open sea. 

An' all the while the fitful firelight gleams 
An' dances in the arch, sendin' its glow 


BILIN’ SAP 


149 


Far out inter the gloom, then sinkin’ low 
Leaves all the scene in dark, mysterious shade, 
An’ ev’ry now an' then the howlin' wind 
Shrieks in the trees like witches ridin’ by, 

Or makes the big old maple limbs ter squeak 
An* groan ; then, in some sudden lull, the crust 
Will crack an' snap like ter the sharp report 
O’ that dread rifle that the red man bears, 

An’ owls with hideous hoots fill up the gaps. 
An* as each tale grows skeerier than the last 
The boys draw nearer to the cheerful fire 
An’ peer inter the gloom with frightened eyes ; 
An’ so they pass the cold un’arthly night 
A-chankin' apples an’ a-spinnin’ yarns, 

An* skeerin' one another nigh ter death. 

Until the gleamin’ stars begin ter fade, 

An’ in the east there comes a yaller streak. 

An’ then they pour the sirup in a tub, 

Then hitch it tight upon the old hand sled, 

An’ draw it home jest as the breakin’ day 
Begins ter chase the shadows o’er the snow. 

Clarence Hawkes 


JINGLE BELLS 


Dashing thro’ the snow, 

In a one-horse open sleigh ; 
O’er the fields we go, 

Laughing all the way. 

Bells on bobtail ring 
Making spirits bright ; 

What fun it is to ride and sing 
A sleighing song to-night ! 

Chorus 

Jingle, bells! jingle, bells! 

Jingle all the way ! 

Oh! what fun it is to ride 
In a one-horse open sleigh! 
Jingle, bells ! Jingle, bells ! 

Jingle all the way ! 

Oh! what fun it is to ride 
In a one-horse open sleigh ! 


150 


JINGLE BELLS 


151 


A day or two ago 

I thought I’d take a ride, 

And soon Miss Fannie Bright 
Was seated by my side. 

The horse was lean and lank ; 

Misfortune seem’d his lot ; 

He got into a drifted bank, 

And we, we got upsot. 

Now the ground is white; 

Go it while you’re young ; 

Take the girls to-night, 

And sing this sleighing song. 

Just get a bobtail’d bay, 

Two forty was his speed ; 

Then hitch him to an open sleigh, 

And crack ! you’ll take the lead. 

Anonymous. 


THE SKI-JOURNEY 


How they go hurrying, 

How they go scurrying! 

Three men on a single pair of ski; 

Rushing past village, and mountain, and tree, 
Stormy skies and clear, 

And the Yule-tide near, 

See the vale below them, dotted with its lights ! 

How they go hurrying, 

How they go scurrying! 

Iamtlanders follow, a drunken rout, 

Unleashing their bloodhounds, to scent them out, 
As the bright moonlight 
Floods the wintry night — 

Black lie the shadows cast by the forest. 

c How they go hurrying, 

How they go scurrying! 

Doomed to the altar, a messenger pair, 

Cared for and fattened, now free do they fare, 
Christian men twain, 

Catch them again ! 

Hungrily howl the ancient wolves of Odin. 

152 


THE SKI-JOURNEY 


i53 


How they go hurrying, 

How they go scurrying! 

On the ski they stand but at shoulder-height 
Of their rescuer’s frame, as, wild with fright, 
They fare forespent, 

While on safety bent, 

Strikes he still onward, as were he alone. 

How they go hurrying, 

How they go scurrying ! 

Through the deep-drifted snow in their headlong 
flight, 

Lost to men’s view as they flee through the night, 
Past wild beast and troll, 

Now they speed toward their goal — 

Halt ! Yonder a hovel half-hid in the forest. 

How they went hurrying, 

How they went scurrying! 

In they crept, kindled fire ’gainst the winter’s rigor, 
Food he set forth, and restored them to vigor, 
Then landed with a leap 
On the loft for sleep, 

Heaving men and weapons up before him. 

How they went hurrying, 

How they went scurrying! 

Then came the Iamtlanders’ footsore pack, 


154 THE SKI-JOURNEY 

Leaping and yelping, the hounds in their track, 
The bones found and pawed, 

Nosed them and gnawed; 

Men and dogs soon were all snoring in sleep. 

How they went hurrying, 

How they went scurrying ! 

In came a troll-wife, her hunger to sate, 

Killed she the dogs, roasted them and ate, 

One by one the men 
Cast in the fire, and then 
Greedily devoured, still smelling for more. 

How they went hurrying, 

How they went scurrying ! 

From the loft a man doth a spear-shaft launch 
In through her back and out through her paunch ; 
Shrieking and quaking, 

The spear-shaft shaking, 

Bellowing the troll rushed out into the forest. 

How they go hurrying, 

How they go scurrying! 

Three men on a single pair of ski, 

Rushing past village, and mountain, and tree, 
Stormy skies and clear, 

And the Yule-tide near, 

Norway lies below them dotted with its lights. 


THE SKI-JOURNEY 


155 


How they go hurrying, 

How they go scurrying! 

“Here is your country, you now are secure; 
Greet King Olaf, for him ’tis sure 
That above all men 
Would I choose for friend, 

To him with my greetings give this silver dish.” 

How they go hurrying, 

How they go scurrying ! 

Under his gold helm streams his hair, 

In the fanning wind, as away he doth fare, 

And his warrior-height 
Towers in sight 

Above the birches on the grassy mountain-slope. 

Bjornstjekne Bjornson 


SKATING 


And in the frosty season, when the sun 

Was set, and visible for many a mile 

The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom, 

I heeded not their summons ; happy time 

It was indeed for all of us — for me 

It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud 

The village clock tolled six — I wheeled about, 

Proud and exulting like an untired horse 

That cares not for his home. All shod with steel, 

We hissed along the polished ice in games 

Confederate, imitative of the chase 

And woodland pleasures, — the resounding horn, 

The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare. 

So through the darkness and the cold we flew, 
And not a voice was idle ; with the din 
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud, 

The leafless trees and every icy crag 
Tinkled like iron ; while far distant hills 
Into the tumult sent an alien sound 
Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars 
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west 
The orange sky of evening died away. 

156 


SKATING 


157 


Not seldom from the uproar I retired 

Into a silent bay, or sportively 

Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, 

To cut across the reflex of a star, 

That fled, and flying still before me, gleamed 
Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes, 

When we had given our bodies to the wind, 

And all the shadowy banks on either side 
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still 
The rapid line of motion, then at once 
Have I, reclining back upon my heels, 

Stopped short ; yet still the solitary cliffs 
Wheeled by me — even as if the earth had rolled 
With visible motion her diurnal round ! 

William Wordsworth 


MONTREAL CARNIVAL SPORTS 


The Frost-King sat on a throne of snow, 

On a plain in the Royal Isle : 

In his hand a sceptre of ice he bore, 

On his brow a crown of ice he wore, 

And his face was set in a holiday smile, 

When he bade the carnival trumpet blow 
For the famous Sports to begin. 

The voluble hills returned the din 
In echoes that travelled o’er many a mile; 

O’er the broad St. Lawrence to St. Helen’s Isle, 

To the sounding rapids of old Lachine, 

To the Boucherville woods with their tufts of 
green, 

And the peaceful hamlets that smiled between. 

A multitude vast as the waves of the sea, 

When Tritons rejoice that the winds are free, 
People from far off Southern lands, 

Where the eagle exults on outspread vans, — 
People who came from the prairied West, 

And pine-clad East, and numbers untold 
Of natives who laughed at the teeth of the cold 
Were there for a gala day, threefold blest. 

158 


MONTREAL CARNIVAL SPORTS 159 


The trumpeter wight was an Arctic sprite, 

Whose limbs were lank and whose locks were white, 
And when he had blown with all his might, 

The Frost-King raised his sceptre high, 

When it flashed all the lights of a boreal sky, 

And thus, in accents of festive tone, 

He welcomed the guests who encircled his throne : — 

“Friends! who have journeyed far to share 
The verve of our Canadian air, 

Greeting and love to all. 

’Tis wise to lay aside each heavy care 
And all the petty ills that do enthral, 

To find in ampler scope this lusty joy, 

This social amity, where no alloy 
Of turbid passion mingles with the gold 
Of kindly fellowship: 

Where harmony betwixt the heart and lip 
Its primal sanctity delights to hold. 

Pleasure is native to the heart of man, 

Here let it freely flow; 

Here let an ocean tide of gladness roll, 

Here where no tyrant’s interdict can ban 
The sacred glow 

That freedom kindles in the human soul.” 

Now let the sports begin, and first 
Let youths and maids who stand athirst 


160 MONTREAL CARNIVAL SPORTS 


For Canada’s supreme sensation, 

For motion’s wild intoxication, 

Launch from yon hills their swift toboggans. 

Behold, upon the utmost crest, 

How democratic Jones and Scroggins 
With Lords and Ladies freely jest. 

Blow, trumpet, blow! 

The signal sound how well they know ! 
Down, down they plunge, what frantic speed ! 
No lightning-shod celestial steed 
E’er swifter clove the azure air 
Than headlong down the polished slide 
Those young athletes and damsels ride, 
Obedient to the trumpet’s blare; 

Like foamy waves that seek the shore, 

When red-mouthed storms behind them roar, — 
Like avalanches loosed from high, — 

Like meteors rushing down the sky, — 

They spurn the steep, they leap, they fly, 

Till on the flats in bubbling joy they pour. 


A sport of more elastic grace 
Now claims from us its honoured place. 
Again, my merry sprite, 

The trumpet sound, and let the night 
In starry azure veil the face 

Of Earth, enrobed in purest white. 
The signal blast the skaters know, 


MONTREAL CARNIVAL SPORTS 161 


And eagerly — with cheeks aglow, 

Their costumes varied as the flowers 
And blossoms that the Summer hours 
On all the sunny lands bestow — 

They skim in joy the crystal floor, 

So full their bliss they ask no more. 

In sooth it is a goodly show, 

Twice twenty hundred twinkling feet 
In fairy flight, advance, retreat, 

Whilst others, more ambitious still, 

In loops and scrolls assert their skill. 

The champion of a hundred rinks, 

Behold him there ! his bosom mailed 
With trophies rich; what fancy jinks 
Those lithe, light limbs that never failed! 
What complicated, airy links 
They weave, as weaves a spider's feet ! 

Till tip-toe wonder, stares and winks, 

And plauding hands his triumphs greet. 
What ho! what means yon wild array, 

In blanket-coats and sashes gay, 

With red fire armed, that wind this way ? 
Stretching afar for many a mile, 

Hither they haste in Indian file, 

Ha, Ha ! the rebel horde I know ; 

Blow, trumpeter, the trumpet blow ! — 

To arms! the snow-shoe host have sworn 
To storm our castle walls, — this morn 


162 MONTREAL CARNIVAL SPORTS 


A faithful courier warning gave; 

Defiant let our war-flag wave! 

And you, my guests, remain in sight, 

Spectators of the weirdest fight 
That ever shook the vault of night. 

To arms, our veterans ! Man the walls, 

Receive them with a million balls 
Of roaring flame, with dart and brand, 

And serpents that no mortal hand 
Can parry; let our trusty Pinch, 

Who never has been known to flinch, 

Protect the gates ; our princely friend, 

Great zero, shall in wrath defend 
The turrets and the loop-holed walls; 

Let blizzard — a tremendous power — 

In fury guard the centre tower; 

And coldsnap, thine the task to shower 
With fiery hail and blistering squalls. 

And cannonade of burning snow 
From every point the reeling foe ! 

The rebels advance with a shout and a cheer ; 

But they reck not the might of that spectral host, 
Each warrior chieftain a blood-freezing ghost, 
Who answered their mirth with a jeer. 

Strange voices — such sounds as the winter winds 
make 


MONTREAL CARNIVAL SPORTS 163 


When lattice and casement they wrench at and 
shake, 

Were heard in those halls; 

And such terrible calls 
As made the most valiant assailant to quake. 

The castle, a lucent volcano, emits 
An ocean of flame on the heads of the foe, 

They waver — they stagger — they lose their five wits, 
And print their appalling defeat in the snow. 

Short, sharp and decisive the battle — no breach — 
In that marvellous structure the rebels could reach. 
To the mountain, abashed, bearing torches, they 
fled, 

Oppressed with the weight of their wounded and 
dead. 

The Frost-King, no longer enveloped in wrath, 

With pity surveyed their laborious path ; 

And then, to the multitude bending, he said : — 

“What folly, what ingratitude! 

To think with such rebellious war 
This wonder of the world to mar ! 

This temple that in mist and flood 
And cataract in embryo slept, 

Till near this Royal Island crept 
The fluent particles, on which 

I breathed and wedded each to each, 

And made the solid lustre rich 


164 MONTREAL CARNIVAL SPORTS 


In dazzling beauty, fit to reach 
And rival, in these gleaming spires, 

The loveliness of astral fires, 

The mellow radiance of the moon. 

Ah! whether late or soon 
We with our retinue depart, 

Is there a single human heart 

Will mourn our exit? Shall we not 

Some few months hence be quite forgot ? 

If even so, another year, 

With equal pleasure, equal cheer, 

King Frost shall hold his court, we wot, 

And meet your warmest welcome here.” 

George Martin 


THE CHRISTMAS HUNTER 


With blare of horn and holloa, 

Who is it forth doth fare? 

It is the Christmas Hunter 
Who rides adown the air. 

Upon his wild steed, Sleipnir, 

He storms across the sky ; 

And like the moan of ocean 
His vanguard surges by. 

They are the Judas-hearted, — * 

They are the souls of them 

That spurned God’s own anointed — 
The Man of Bethlehem. 

For them nor peace nor joyance 
At this high tide of Yule, 

Since they are doomed to follow 
The Hunter’s iron rule. 

Rage fills his veins with riot 
When peals the Christmas mirth, 

For memory bears him backward 
When he had power on earth. 

165 


THE CHRISTMAS HUNTER 


1 66 


So mad he whirls his minions 
Behind him fast and far, 

Without or pause or pity. 

From star to utmost star. 

The once almighty Odin 
Whom Christ hurled from his height, 

He is the Christmas Hunter 
Who roams the voids of night. 

Clinton Scollard 


THE RACE AT PETIT COTE 


Did you ever saw mah ponay — 

De wan wat win de race? 

She’s hon de cutter every day, 

She maike de rack an pace. 

She’s only fair French ponay, 

She hav no padda-gree; 

Her color was de ches-not bay 
But shee’s good nufif for me. 

“Catin” was mah ponay’s name 
(De saime as ba-bee doll) ; 

Across de Grande Marais she came, 
She’s five year hole las’ fall. 

Gouleau’s got a pacing horse, 

Ban Butlaire was hees name; 

He bring it over from Ecorse, 

From Meechegane he came. 

Gouleau he always maike de blow 
About hees gait an’ paddagree; 

Dat felleure try it hard to show 

Hees plog could maike de two-tortee. 
167 


1 68 


THE RACE AT PETIT COTE 


He say hees modder was a dam, 

De fadere was a sire 

Wat win de race mos’ every-tam. 
Was full of blood an* fire. 

He hav a ceefecate to show 
Hees fadere it was de Pilot R. 

An' also dat hees dam could go, 

For dat was Floray Temp de star. 

We ain’t see Floray for long tarn, 
An’ Pilot long ago was die. 

Ba gosh ! Ah tink dat dam an’ sire 
Was Gouleau’s dam beeg lie. 

Mah fren Cicotte from Wyandotte 
Was tole me hon de sly 

De record wat dat plog hees got — 
You’ll hear de finish by an by. 

He say dat some wan was a liar ; 

For he see hees racker long ago — 

He pull de hengine to de fire 
In de good ole citay of Munroe. 

Hees gallop for de fire brigade, 

De force was like heem well ; 

Hees hon de job, so Cicotte said, 

Till some- wan rings de bell. 


THE RACE AT PETIT COTE 

An* den he say de dev’s to pay, 

Dat bell was change hees mind : 

He’ll turn an’ go som odder way — 

An’ leave de fire brigade behind. 

For he was hongrey all de day, 

Hees hongrey all de naight — 

De corn, de bean, de bran, de hay, 

Hees gobble ever’t’ing in sight. 

Hees appetite she can’t be beat, 

For hees always feel so well. 

Hees sure dat was de tam to eat 
W’en some wan rings de bell. 

Gouleau was start aga’n to holler 
Dat Ban, hees pacing horse, 

Would beat mah ponay for t’ree dollar — 
Ah cover up de bet, of course. 

Dat was to be de two-mile race 
At Petit-Cote, along de shore. 

No trot, no gallop, joust de pace, 

T’ree dollar cash, an’ notting more. 

You know de road by Jeem MacKee? 
At de bank shee’s turning round. 

Dat’s de plaice, we was agree, 

Would be de starting ground. 


169 


THE RACE AT PETIT COTE 


Den doun de reever we must go 
For two mile straight, no more, 

To Louie Youngeblod’s plaice below — 
De poplaire tree was hon de shore. 

De week behind las’ Saturday 
We fix it for de go. 

De wedder she was frostay, 

De hice was cover wid de snow. 

We bring de ponays to de scratch, 

All de habitant was dere. 

Dey put dere monay hon de match ; 
Dere betting freelay hon mah mare. 

“Dees be de race for pace an* rack,” 

Joe Covion, de judge, hees say. 

“So char de way ! Gott off de tra’k ! 
We start de ponays raight away.” 

Den neck an’ neck we start to go, 

But he judge say, “Start wance more 
We off aga’n, hees calling “Whoa! 
Start off aga’n, same as before.” 

We’re off at last, an’ hon de speed. 

L’enfant! dat was som’ pace! 

Ah’m trying hard to take de lead, 

But ole Ban still was in de race. 


THE RACE AT PETIT COTE lyi 

De snow she fly as we pass by, 

Mah ponay try to show de way, 

But to see dat ole Ban Butlaire fly 
You’d t’ink dere was a fire dat day. 

Neck an’ neck we’re pacing fast, 

We’re hon de plaice of Tom MeLoche; 

Ah do mah best, Ah can’t get past 
Dat ole-tam hengine horse. 

De habitant call from de shore 

An’ geeve de cheer, as we pass bye. 

“Avance, Catin!” “Avance, encore!” 

“Wake up ! wake up, old Ban !” dey cry. 

Ba gosh ! Ah never see such race — 

Raight togedder side by side 

Dey go two-tortee hon de pace; 

For taike de lead each ponay tried. 

De Taverne Rouge we’re going past, 

Neck an’ neck, an’ all was well; 

Ban Butlaire he was going fast 
W’en de cook she ring de bell. 

Den Ban he break, he break some more, 

“Who done !” hees driver yell. 

He turn an’ gallop for de shore 
An’ still de cook she ring de bell. 


172 


THE RACE AT PETIT COTE 


Wid me, Ah finish hon de pace ; 

Dey cheer as Ah pass by. 

De judge decide Ah win de race 
For ole Ban was deesqualify. 

“Dat's put op job,’* Gouleau he say, 
“Cicotte’s de wan can tell — 

Dat’s heem w’at pay de cook dat day 
To ring dat dinner bell.” 

William Edward Baubie 


WINTER SPEEDING 


Old Hiram settled it at last ; 

“ The time was too — too dee-vil-ish fast!” 

Robe-wrapped and capped, with faces bold 
Against the sharp, aggressive cold, 

We struck the ice-paved Midway floor, 
Breeze-swept from off the windy shore. 

Away the course spread smooth and free 
Where westward rose frost spire and tree; 
And gray walls lifted on our right 
To mark the swiftness of our flight. 

The lines grew taut, the breeching drew, 

As “J. D-” ’s legs did all they knew ; 

His splendid head was flung in air, 

His moving tail said : “Come, who dare !” 

His stride stretched long and sure and true, 
As straight behind his hoof-beats flew; 

His nostrils breathed defiant breath, 

As if he feared nor Time nor Death. 

173 


174 


WINTER SPEEDING 


Our cheeks burned red, our ears froze white 
Our eyes were swimming with the sight ; 

But still our hearts exulted high, 

Like storm birds shooting through the sky. 

For his body swung in a steady flight 
Like a master spirit fleet; 

And his breath was the breath of fiery might, 
And the wind was in his feet. 

Horace Spencer Fisfe 


A NORTHERN TRAPPER’S TRAIL 


Have you ever stooped in the frosty morn 
And bound your snowshoes on, 

And felt the blood in your veins as wine, 

No cares to brood upon ; 

And started off on your old smooth trail, 

As a web of cloth it lay, 

Unroll’d o’er hill and lake and vale. 

For forty miles away; 

No human there to bar your path — 

You laugh at the grey wolves’ wail — 

With your old true rifle on your arm 
As you travel the trapper’s trail ; 

The fish that swim in a score of lakes 
Are there for you to bring; 

The moose that feed on a hundred hills 
Are ample for a king ; 

With a shout of freedom held in your throat 
The blood in your veins as wine — 

Have you ever been there, Dear Brother, 
Mid’st the tall and scented pine ? 

George Weldon 


175 


THE DAUGHTER OF THE SNOW 


Though the panther’s footprints show, 
And the wild-cat’s, in the snow, 

You will never find a trace 
Of the footsteps of a certain 
Maiden with a paler face 
Than the drifts that fill and curtain 
Hillside, valley, and the wood, 

Where the hunter’s wigwam stood 
In the winter solitude. 

What white beast hath grown the fur 
For the whiter limbs of her ? — 
Raiment of the frost and ice 
To her supple beauty fitting; 
Wampum strands, as white as rice, 

Of the frost’s fantastic knitting, 
Wrap her form and face complete; 
Glove her hands with ice ; her feet 
Moccasin with beaded sleet. 

’Though he knew she made a haunt 
Of the dell, it did not daunt : 

Where the hoar-frost mailed each tree 
In soft, phantom alabaster, 

And hung ghosts of bud and bee 
On each autumn- withered aster; 

176 


THE DAUGHTER OF THE SNOW 177 


By the frozen waterfall, 

There she stood, beneath its wall, 

In the ice-sheathed chaparral. 
Where the beech-tree and the larch 
Built a white triumphal arch 
For the Winter, marching down 
With his icy-armored leaders ; 
Where each hemlock had a crown. 
And pale diadems the cedars ; 
Where the long icicle shone, 

There he saw her, standing lone, 
Like a mist-wraith turned to stone. 

And she led him many a mile 
With her hand-wave and her smile. 
And the printless swiftness of 
Feet of frost, and snowy flutter 
Of her raiment ; now above, 

Now below, the boughs of utter 
Winter whiteness. Led him on 
Till the dawn and day were gone, 
And the evening star hurg wan. 

Hunters found him dead, they tell, 
In the winter-wasted dell, 

With his quiver and his bow, 
Where the cascade ran a rafter, 
White, of crystal and of snow ; 


178 THE DAUGHTER OF THE SNOW 

Where he listened to her laughter, 
Promises, that were as far 
As the secrets of a star, 

And her love that naught could mar. 

And her countenance is this 
Stamped on his : and this her kiss, 

Haunting still his mouth and eyes, 

Colder than the cold December: 

This her passion, that defies 

All control, the stars remember 
Filled him, killed him : this is she 
Clinging to him, neck and knee, 

Where his limbs sank wearily. 

Madison Cawein 


THE SKATERS 


Above the frozen floods 
Gay feet keep time, 

Steel-shod, their measures beat 
Insistent rhyme. 

No cares oppress the hearts. 

Glad youth makes light ; 

The winter skies and happy eyes 
Alike are bright. 

Shores where the summer waves 
Have whispered low, 

Echo the skaters’ song, 

As to and fro 
Glide flitting forms, 

And watch-fire's glow 
Leaps into frosty air 
And crimsons snow. 

Fly, skaters, with wing’d feet! 
The night wears on; 

Be your stroke ne’er so fleet, 
Night soon is gone. 

With morning’s dawn, the fires 
In ashes lie, 

And mountains keep their ward 
Silently by. 


179 


Grace W. Leach 


TRACKIN' RABBITS 


The fleecy flakes come failin' down 
Deep in the stillness of the night, 

An’ robe the earth so bare an' brown. 

In bridal dress o’ purest white, 

An' memory goes a nosin’ back 
Toward the happy long ago, 

When 'round the farm we used to track 
The bunnie rabbits through the snow. 

All bundled up with “comforters' 
Around our boyish necks an’ ears 
We’d call the little huntin’ curs 
To limber up their runnin’ gears, 

An’ ’round the snowy ol’ straw stack 
An’ bresh-heap clearin’ we would go, 
Our hearts alive with fun, to track 
The skeery rabbits through the snow. 

When one was started, Moses help ! 

But how them hankerin’ dogs’d fly ! 
At every jump they’d give a yelp. 

Us kids a j’inin’ in the cry. 

180 


TRACKIN’ RABBITS 181 

Then through a dog-proof fence ’t’d out 
An’ to’ards its home in safety go, 

A leavin’ its pursuers but 

Its tracks cut down into the snow. 

We’ve trailed the brown an’ grizzly bear 
When in the mountains short o’ meat, 

Have seen the elk with shaggy hair 
Lay dead an’ bleedin’ at our feet, 

The mountain lion’s pelt have packed 
To camp, an’ laid the blacktail low, 

But had no sport like when we tracked 
Them skeered-up rabbits through the snow. 

Anonymous 


PICKEREL-FISHING THROUGH THE ICE 


Wide o’er the lake’s transparent plain 
An adamantine floor is laid, 

A pure and crystalline domain 
By unseen frosty fingers made ; 

So firm, a marching host might pass 
With ponderous guns the bridge of glass; 
And here the ice-boats skim or beat 
Swifter than yachter’s sailing fleet, 

And, pois’d upon the gleamy steel, 

The flying skaters whirl and wheel. 

The eeler comes with trident spear 
To thrust with keen and barbed grain ; 
The pickerel-fishers gather near, 

To hew with axe the crystal plain, 

And there with baited lines all day, 

On circling skates they watch for prey. 

A hundred flapping tents arise 
To screen them from the blast that blows, 
And the white lake with canopies 
Like warlike vast encampment shows. 

It is a fair, secluded spot 
Hid in dense woods of evergreen, 

A frozen lake of lucent glass 
Fringed with its sombre forest screen; 
The larch, the hemlock, and the pine 

And spicy cedars hem it round, 

182 


PICKEREL-FISHING 


183 


In whose thick, interlacing shades 
The speckled partridges abound. 

In summer 'tis a sparkling lake 
With golden sands and purple deeps, 
Where skims the yellow pickerel, 

Or through profoundest waters sweeps. 

But when the winter days are come 
And Christmas carols thrill the air, 

And snows besiege the farmer's home, 
And pallid woods stretch bleak and bare, 
Ice spreads a solid glassy floor 
Across the lake from shore to shore, 

Then joyous troops delight to wheel 
And whirl upon the glancing steel, 

To build great bonfires to illume 
The scene when falls the evening gloom, 
From dawn till midnight hour to make 
Wild frolic o'er the crackling lake, 

To hew deep chasms in the clear 
Pure ice for passage of the spear, 

Or set the fish-lines to ensnare 
The lurking pickerel from his lair. 

A jocund and a youthful crowd 
Assemble there with laughter loud ; 

Bright golden locks o’er brows of snow, 
Cheeks with roses' scarlet glow, 

And darker tresses flowing down 
Like torrents from the mountain's crown ; 


184 


PICKEREL-FISHING 


Eyes gleaming like the diamond spark, 

Or star-beam flashing thro’ the dark ; 

These gather all in mad delight, 

To see the finny treasures bright 
That flash and glitter as they leap 
From dim abysses of the deep. 

O riotous, glad winter-time! 

With brow of snow and locks of rime, 

With sifting drift on garden-rail, 

With woods resplendent with the hail, 

With shapeless snow-heaps o’er the ground, 
And roofs with pearl tiaras crown’d, 

And house-eaves thick with jewels set. 
Bright as the polish’d bayonet ; 

With wreaths the old walls to adorn, 

Where youth and beauty dance till morn ; 

With silver tinkle of the bells 

O’er country roads, thro’ sylvan dells ; 

With skater’s shout and singer’s strain 
Far o’er the wide, rejoicing plain ; — 

Ah ! with all these no festival 
So gay in summer’s gilded hall ! 

Isaac McLellan 


SKATING HATH CHARMS 

So cold was the night, 

And her cheeks were cold, too. 
Though it wasn’t quite right. 

So cold was the night, 

And so sad was her plight, 

That I — well, wouldn’t you ? 

So cold was the night, 

And her cheeks were cold, too. 

Anonymous 


185 


WHITE WORLDS 


Like cameos carved on a purple sky 
Great clean-cut mountains stand. 

Icy their helmets towering high 
Over a silent land — 

From the dim vale we slowly climb 
Through forests streaked with snow, 

In a sparkling air, where the crystal rime 
Glitters with frosty glow. 

Aloft as the lines of the pine trees cease 
Deep corniced couloirs run 
By hard- won paths to a land of peace 
Into the realm of sun. 

Where an underworld, far as the eye can gaze 
From the summit’s topmost crest 
Stretches away to an azure haze 
Drowsing in wintry rest. 

Straight run our ski down the untracked steep, 
Seaming a virgin face, 

Upwards the valleys quickly creep 
From unseen depths of space. 

The snow-dust flies as the speed grows fast, 

The still air changes to rushing blast, 

Alas, that such moments soon are past 
With their thrilling joys of pace! 

H. Gandy 


18 6 


WOLVERINE WINTER 


The chickadee came in the morning : 

Over the Lake hung snow-clouds piling. 

Wheeling for the signal — for the signal 
Of the lake gods coming to battle ! 

Up and down the West Coast went the Life Guards 
Sniffing at the air and frowning at the sky ; 

Peering out to westward, muttering to their Pard — 
To their Pard, the surf seeping high. 

While the winter came out of the North 
Stript naked, cruel as a bloodless sword! 

I carried in wood and I pumped me some water ; 

I cleaned out the chimney and doubled my quilts. 
Then I phoned in to town and bid my pals adieu. 
We curst at the weather; promised our God a 
prayer. 

For the winter, the frozen Hell of the West 
Coast, 

Like a weasel was sneaking down the shore. 

187 


i88 


WOLVERINE WINTER 


Like the wraith of a profaned tomb it came, 

I could see it twisting and writhing round the Point, 

Round Little Sauble Point, where the pines and 
spruces 

Whine in a gale like the overtaut string of a viol. 

Out among the snow-clouds swept its scythe-like 
breath, 

Fretting the pitching waves to frothy frenzies; 

Catching their boiling crests in a creamy ice : 

And where it passed the moisture was turned to 
snow. 

At dusk, with a keening wrench and thrust, it 
left the Lake ; 

Snarled at the Land; froze the West Coast 
dead! 


Paul F. Sifton 


A SKATING SONG 


The sound of the bugle over the hill — 

Ho! lads, ho! 

The twang of the bowstring, silvery shrill 
Across the waste of snow. 

Then busk ye, all my merry men, 

And arm ye for the fight, 

There’s many a heart now whole, I ken, 
Will helpless lie this night — 

For who can brave a maiden’s glance, 

Or ward her dear device — 

What time the moonbeams are a-dance 
Along the diamond ice? 

The gallant rush as the squadrons wheel — 
Away ! lads, away ! 

The rollicking call and the ring of steel — 
Ah ! but the world is gay ! 

So, merry men, lay down your arms 
And quit a vanquished field, 

For we are bound by stronger charms 
Than Baron Frost can wield. 

189 


190 A SKATING SONG 

The icy chains of doughty Jack 
Must vanish at a breath, 

But these fond ties we wear, alack ! 

Shall hold us to the death. 

Dan Cupid’s bow is never still — 

And like a b£fr 

Sounds Love’s light laughter over the hill — 
A sweet farewell. 


David Potter 


THE SHOOTING OF THE MOOSE 


All day through woodland stillnesses 
Of weighted fir and spruce 
We’ve followed on our springing shoes 
The blood-trail of the moose, 

And now the moon swings clear, and black 
The shadows fall across our track. 

All day above the crunching snow 
Pierre and Dick and I, 

With lust of blood, have sped along 
To see the great moose die. 

And now the night has come, and dim 
The spectral drifts wreathe after him. 

We shot him at the cabin door ; 

The whisky- jacks cried shrill. 

And when the smoke moved up I saw 
The hemlocks waiting still — 

The ancient spruces bending low 
To his brave blood across the snow. 

Yea, brave his blood as yours or mine. 

And fit for better skill. 

The devil’s luck, Pierre! I know 
The sights were fixed to kill. 

To-night a bull-moose, plunging, dies 
Beneath the comfortless, wide skies. 

Theodore Roberts 


THE LADY OF SNOWS 

Ghostly, ethereal, mystical form ! 

Lady of Snows! 

Smiling in sunshine and saddened in storm, 

Why dost thou beckon me, ever above me? 
Bidding me follow and making me love thee, 

Lady of Snows ! 

Phoebus, all radiant, wakes thee with fire. 

Lady of Snows! 

Blushing thou risest in fleecy attire ; 

If thou art wooed by a god at thy portal. 

Why wilt thou stoop to ensnare a mere mortal? 
Lady of Snows ! 

Slowly I mount in the heat of the day. 

Lady of Snows! 

White and transcendent thou showest the way ; 
Tracks there are none, snow and silence surround 
me, 

Nearer I seem to thee! Ah! have I found thee? 
Lady of Snows ! 


192 


THE LADY OF THE SNOWS 


193 


Nay ! On this summit I seek thee in vain, 

Lady of Snows! 

Then, in the distance, behold thee again ; 

Laughing, and leaping o’er chasms appalling, 
Mocking or coaxing, but ever enthralling, 

Lady of Snows! 

Evening is falling, the sun is at rest, 

Lady of Snows ! 

Opal and amethyst glow on thy breast ; 

Then, of a sudden, thy warmth and thy splendour 
Fade to blue ice, neither youthful nor tender, 

Lady of Snows ! 

Fixed now thy features — the stillness of Death, 
Lady of Snows ! 

Fast I descend, for the chill of thy breath 
Freezes my veins, and a pang of cold sorrow 
Wrings my poor heart — but I’ll seek thee to- 
morrow, 

Lady of Snows! 


C. N. Buzzard 


OVER THE ICE 


Over the ice with a curving swing, 

With a wheeling sweep like a bird a-wing, 
A dream of beauty and matchless grace 
With sparkling eyes and a bright fair face 
And a heart as light as her tossing curls, 
Queen of the winter — fairest of girls. 

The skirl of two tiny steel-shod feet, 

A poem of motion wondrous fleet ; 

A swaying figure in every line, 

Quick with a supple grace divine, 

A luring vision of poesy 

Hither and thither, swift and free — 

Over the ice. 

Over the ice with a measured stride, 

In a long, long roll of manly pride, 
Bending with easy skill that spurns 
The snowy flakes at the sharper turns, 
With cunning toe and skilful heel 
Tracing through spin, and loop, and wheel, 
Checking the gleaming surface o’er 
With flowing figures in varied score — 
King of the winter — in muscled prime 
194 


OVER THE ICE 


195 


Hither and thither with cadenced time. 

With iron nerve and a fearless heart 
Glancing safe in his practised art — 

Over the ice. 

Over the ice — in united strength. 

To and fro o’er its polished length, 

In smoothest measure that chimes and blends 
The tiny “twos” with the “number tens,” 

Through “outside edge,” and “roll,” and “eight,” 
Tangling two in a single fate 
Hearts that flutter and proudly beat 
Chiming true with the clinking feet ; 

Blades that are carving one destiny 
Blent in the graceful tracery, 

Braving the fate — that plans a fall 
Sudden and awful — and spreads e’en all — 

Over the ice. 


Edward W. Sandys 


THE WINTER SCENE 


The rutted roads are all like iron ; skies 

Are keen and brilliant; only the oak-leaves cling 

In the bare woods, or hardy bitter-sweet; 

Drivers have put their sheepskin jackets on ; 

And all the ponds are sealed with sheeted ice, 

That rings with stroke of skate and hockey-stick ; 

Or in the twilight cracks with running whoop. 

Bring in the logs of oak and hickory, 

And make an ample blaze on the wide hearth. 

Now is the time, with winter o’er the world, 

For books and friends and yellow candle-light, 

And timeless lingering by the settling fire, 

While all the shuddering stars are keen and cold. 

Out of the silent portal of the hours, 

When frosts are come and all the hosts put on 
Their burnished gear to march across the night, 
And o’er a darkened earth in splendor shine, 
Slowly above the world Orion wheels 
His glittering square, while on the shadowy hill 
And throbbing like a sea-light through the dusk, 
Great Sirius rises in his flashing blue. 

196 


THE WINTER SCENE 


197 


Lord of the Winter Night, august and pure, 
Returning year on year untouched by time. 

To kindle faith with thy immortal fire, 

There are no hurts that beauty cannot ease. 

No ills that love cannot at last repair, 

In the courageous progress of the soul. 

Russet and white and gray is the oak wood 
In the great snow. Still from the North it comes, 
Whispering, settling, sifting through the trees, 
O’erloading branch and twig. The road is lost. 
Clearing and meadow, stream and ice-bound pond 
Are made once more a trackless wilderness 
In the white hush where not a creature stirs ; 

And the pale sun is blotted from the sky. 

In that strange twilight the lone traveller halts 
To listen while the stealthy snowflakes fall. 

And then far off toward the Stamford shore, 
Where through the storm the coastwise liners go, 
Faint and recurrent on the muffled air, 

A foghorn booming through the smother, — hark ! 

When the day changed and the mad wind died down, 
The powdery drifts that all day long had blown 
Across the meadows and the open fields, 

Or whirled like diamond-dust in the bright sun, 

Settled to rest, and for a tranquil hour 

The lengthening bluish shadows on the snow 


THE WINTER SCENE 


198 

Stole down the orchard slope, and a rose light 
Flooded the earth with glory and with peace. 

Then in the west behind the cedars black 
The sinking sun made red the winter dusk 
With sullen flare along the snowy ridge, — 

Like a rare masterpiece by Hokusai, 

Where on a background gray, with flaming breath 
The crimson dragon dies in dusky gold. 

Bliss Carman 


GATHER ROUND, ALL YE GOOD MEN 


Parched ’mid the dust of the hot summer’s blue, 
Forgotten and lone sleeps the swift-gliding shoe. 
When fair Winter, deftly, a white covering weaves, 
And tenderly mantles the dank, fallen leaves — 
When the winds whistle keen through the maples 
and firs, 

And the throbbing pulse leaps and the sluggish blood 
stirs : 

Then the blanketed lads their phalanxes form, 

And laugh in the teeth of the fierce-driving storm. 

Gather round all ye good men and true , 

Join with us in gladsome jubilee: 

Unsullied still our tasselled blue , — 
Untarnished may its brightness be! 

Many long years since we entered the race, — 
Unchallenged the record and strong yet the pace ; 
Old comrades may drop from the ranks in the snow, 
Still onward, majestic, the old colors go. 

They are twined ’mid the folds of our loved Union 
Jack 

That over us waves ; and should dastard attack, — 
Confusion attend on the pestilent horde, 

When the Blanket and Toque tramp with rifle and 
sword ! 


199 


Samuel M. Baylis 


SKI-SONG OF THE BRAEMAR POSTMAN 


Ah ! the tang o’ the snell hill-air 
Stirs my auld blood like wine ! 

Aince I went climbin’ — climbin’ sair — 
Shoulder-high sometimes the snow — 

(Before I got these “ski” of mine — ) 

But noo — nae mair! 

It’s the glory o’ youth that I feel as I go — 
Straight an’ swift as the swallows sweep — 

Past the corrie, an’ doon the steep ! 

Ah ! my auld blood races young an’ warm 
Though the snow lies deep 
On Cairngorm ! 

Tae ilka hoosie in ilka glen 
“Posty” maun bring his bag! 

Tis a guid clean life for your young strong men, 
But the auld backs bend, an’ the auld hairts fail, 
An’ the auld feet linger an’ lag — 

But I’m young again ! 

Young ! — when in front o’ a roarin’ gale 
Past the corrie, an’ doon the steep 
Fearless an’ straight, as a bird I sweep. 

Ah ! my auld blood races young an’ warm 
Tho’ the snow lies deep 
On Cairngorm! 


200 


Anonymous 


A NIGHT ON THE SKATING RINK 


Our rink is in motion, 

Like waves of the ocean. 

When Summer shines broad on the sea. 
The skaters strike out, 

Scarce forbearing to shout, 

All happy and joyous and free; 

And the speed of their flight, 

Like an arrow of light, 

Takes the breath from a laggard like me. 

The exquisite whirl 
Of that lovely girl 

Has tripped up some heart — I fear — 
Ah, were I as young 
As when first I sung, 

And the rustics were fain to hear, 

I would pour out my soul 
In a strain that should roll 
Aloft to the heavenly sphere! 

But though old enough now 
To have sons teach me how 
To voyage the crystalline floor, 

I yield to the power 
Of the jubilant hour 

And think of my moustache no more ; 

201 


A NIGHT ON THE SKATING RINK 


For a poet, at least, 

Should partake of mirth’s feast 
Till his top is exceedingly hoar. 

See, see where she flies! 

How adroitly she plies 
Those feet with the shining wings, 
With a graceful swerve 
And a classical curve 
While beneath her the ice-path rings ; 
And the wind in a freak 
Stops to kiss her fair cheek, 

Then around her in ecstacy sings. 

Still sweep we around 
With a rippling sound, 

Keeping time to the orchestra’s swell, 
Which, like a bright river 
Falling headlong forever 
O’er a precipice down to the dell, 
Bears our troubles far hence, 

And entrancing each sense, 

Makes the world one melodious spell. 

Let bacchanals drink, 

Till like dotards they wink, 

Or laugh with a maniac’s stare ; 

They embrace but the ghost 


A NIGHT ON THE SKATING RINK 203 


Of true pleasure, at most, 

And their morrow is dark with despair ; 

But the health-giving cheer, 

That we revel in here, 

Makes our lives more enduringly fair. 

So I’m jovial to-night 
With the wine of delight, 

I am back to my boyhood again ; 

For a moment like this 
Brings a torrent of bliss 
That floods over heart and brain ; 

And the era foretold 
By the sages of old 
Has commenced its millennial reign. 

George Martin 


MOOSE-HUNTING IN WINTER 


When the winter snowfall lies heavy and deep 
In rounded hillock and drifted heap, 

And the frosty flakes like diamonds shine 
On the boughs of the hemlock and plumy pine; 
Then forth to the northern wilderness 
The hardy trappers and hunters press. 

The snow lieth deep, the snow lies white, 

It fills the hollows, it tops the height ; 

The frozen river, the ice-bound lakes, 

Are cover’d o’er by the sparkling flakes : 

The brook lies mute, and choked in its bed ; 

You cannot trace where its channels led ; 

The cedar branch is bent to the ground, 

The spruce with a weighty burden is crown’d ; 
Afar spreads a silent and crystal waste, 

Where the features of nature are all effac’d. 

But the valiant hunter hath heart of steel ; 

He buckles the snow-shoes firm to his heel ; 
His Indian blanket and buckskin dress 
Suit well with the rugged wilderness ; 

A leathern girdle surrounds his waist. 

Wherein his axe and wood-knife are plac’d : 

Then forth, at the crimson dawning of day, 
With his heavy rifle he takes his way. 

The snow lies hard, for the keen, cold night 

Hath form’d a crust both solid and bright : 

204 


MOOSE-HUNTING IN WINTER 205 


So the hunter strides on with steadfast tread 
Wherever the icy deserts may spread ; 

Knowing well the great moose and the caribou, 
With clattering hoofs, must wallow through ; 
Although they be fleet as bird on the wing, 

When o’er the firm turf of the forest they spring, 
Yet when helpless they sink in the yielding snow, 
They’re an easy prey to their resolute foe. 

The great northern stag, with antlers so broad, 
With hoofs that can fence or assault like a sword, 

Is a terrible foe ; so, hunter, beware, 

Nor rashly the dangerous champion dare : 

His many-tined antlers are like spikes of the oak, 

As sharp as a dagger, as fatal their stroke : 

Those prongs they would toss both hunter and 
hound, 

Their stab would impale them like worms of the 
ground, 

First drive the ounce-bullet through skull and 
through brain, 

Till he paint with his gore the snow of the plain; 
Then draw the keen edge of your blade o’er his 
throat, 

And sound the death-slogan with shrill bugle-note. 

In the far-away northermost wilds of Maine, 
Where the murmuring pines all the year complain, 
In the unknown Aroostook’s lonesome world, 


206 MOOSE-HUNTING IN WINTER 


Or where the waters of Moosehead are curl’d, 

The stalwart wood-cutter pitches his camp. 

In his cabin of logs trims his winter lamp ; 

And oft when the moose-herd hath form’d its 
“yard,” 

And trampled the snows like a pavement hard, 

The woodman forsakes his sled and his team, 

And his harvest of logs by the frozen stream ; 

And, arm’d with his axe and his rifle, he goes 
To slaughter the moose blocked in by the snows ; 
And many a savory banquet doth cheer 
The fireside joys of his wintry year, 

With the haunch of the moose and the dappled 
deer. 


Isaac McLellan 


LOST SPIRITS 


That Gnomes abound on mountains, sad spirits haunt 
the snows, 

And witches all love woodland, each Alpine peasant 
knows ; 

But — buy bell, book, and candle, and pray you may 
be free 

From those infernal sorcerers, the Genii of the Ski. 

These demons once inhabited the swine of Gaderene, 

And, when their homes were waterlogged, went wan- 
dering unseen, 

Seeking some earthly tenement, till mankind, making 
skis, 

Made each the home he longed for, — so now they 
swarm like bees. 

Say you loosen off Satanas, and rest him on the 
snow. 

Because, on all the toil up, he’s been gnawing at 
your toe. 

Away he goes “hinunter,” like an arrow from a 
bow, 

To hide himself in timber, a thousand feet below. 

Alone remains Beelzebub, who does not seem to 
mind ; 


20 7 


208 LOST SPIRITS 

He knows that you must carry him (intolerable 
grind), 

Wading long miles of snowfield until your temper 
fails, 

Seeking his errant comrade, deep in the distant 
vales. 

Though hereditary instinct will make them both 
agree, 

That the only way to take you is straight down the 
steepest scree, 

Should there be a boulder big enough for one to 
go each side, 

They will do so, and do do so, and you — Divide! 
Divide ! 

They have unholy compacts with all demons in the 
mass, 

The imps who sit on icy roads, to trip you as you 
pass; 

The fiends who rule the avalanche, leg-breaking 
sprites in trees, 

Will all conspire, with one desire, to watch you 
slowly freeze. 

Give to your bitterest enemy — a cast-off pair of 
skis. 


H. Gandy 


WINTER IN CANADA 


Nay, tell me not that with shivering fear, 

You shrink from the thought of wintering here ; 
That the cold intense of our winter time, 

Is severe as that of Siberian clime ; 

And if wishes could waft across the sea, 
To-night in your English home you would be. 

Remember, no hedges there now are bright 
With verdure, or blossoms of hawthorn white; 
In damp sodden fields, or bare garden beds, 

No daisies or cowslip show their fair heads ; 
Whilst cold chilling winds and skies of dark hue, 
Tell, in England, as elsewhere, ’tis winter too. 

Raise your eyes to our skies of azure hue, 
Admire their gleaming, metallic blue, 

Look round on the earth robed in bridal white, 

All glittering and flashing with diamonds bright. 
Whilst o’erhead, her lover and lord, the sun, 
Shines brightly as e’er in Summer he’s done. 

In a graceful sleigh, drawn by spirited steed, 
You glide o’er the snow with lightning speed, 

Whilst from harness decked with silvery bells, 

209 


210 


WINTER IN CANADA 


In sweet showers the sound on the clear air swells, 
And the keen bracing breeze with vigor rife, 

Sends quick through your veins warm streams of 
life. 


On with your snow-shoes, so strong and light, 
Thick blanket-coat, sash of scarlet bright, 

And away o’er the deep and untrodden snow. 
Through wood, o’er mountain, untrammelled to go, 
Through lone narrow paths where in years long 
fled, 

The Indian passed with light active tread. 


What! dare to rail at our snow storms? Oh, why 
Not view them with poet’s or artist’s eye, 

Watch each pearly flake as it falls from above, 
Like snowy plumes from some spotless dove, 
Clothing all objects in ermine of air, 

Far purer than that which monarchs wear? 


Have you not witnessed our glorious nights, 

So brilliant with gleaming Northern-lights, 
Quick flashing and darting across the sky, 

Whilst afar in the starry heavens high, 

The shining moon pours down streams of light, 
O’er the silent earth robed in dazzling white? 


WINTER IN CANADA 


211 


\ 


There are times, too, our woods show wondrous 
sights, 

Such as are read of in “Arabian Nights,” 

When branch and bough are all laden with gems, 
And sparkle like Eastern diadems; 

And the sun sheds a blaze of dazzling light, 

On ruby, opal, and diamond bright. 

But tarry till Spring on Canadian shore; 

You’ll rail at our winters then no more — 

New health and fresh life through your veins shall 
glow, 

Spite of piercing winds, spite of ice and snow, 

And I’d venture to promise in truth, my friend, 
’Twill not be the last that with us you’ll spend ! 

Mrs. J. L. Leprohon 


A SONG OF THE SKI 




A King, I ween, it must have been, 

All in the North Countree. 

Who freed his folks from the Snow-fiend’s yoke, 
By teaching the use of the Ski. 

’Tis said, one day, as asleep he lay, 

In a vision he did see, 

How men might glide down the mountain side, 

As ships glide over the sea. 

Then he up and laughed, “I will make a raft, 

A raft for each foot,” quoth he ; 

“For, methinks, they should go o’er the billowy 
snow, 

As they go o’er the billowy sea.” 

So an ash tree sound he felled to the ground — 

All in the North Countree; 

And cleft it in twain, with a straight running grain, 
To fashion the faery Ski. 

Two supple strips with upturned tips 
He carved from the riven tree, 

And with leathern thong to his ankles strong 

He lashed the new-born Ski. 

212 


A SONG OF THE SKI 


213 


Twas rapture supreme, passing vision or dream, 
No longer he sank to the knee, 

But with curve, dip and swing, like a bird on the 
wing, 

He sped o’er the snow on his Ski. 

Then o’er hill and dale with an even trail, 

He fared through the North Countree, 

And he cried with delight as he skimmed from the 
height 

“Hurrah ! for the fleeting Ski !” 

And thus the sport to the world was taught, 

All in the North Countree; 

And the snow no more keeps folk within door. 

For they all fare forth on their Ski. 

Anonymous 


THE YULE-LOG 


Hale the Yule-log in ! 

Heap the fagots high ! 

With a merry din 
Rouse old Revelry! 

Cry “Noel ! Noel!” 

Till the rafters ring, 

And the gleeful bell 
Peals its answering ! 

Brim the Christmas cup 
From the wassail-bowl, 

Now the flame leaps uo 
With its ruddy soul! 

In the glowing blaze 
How the dancers spin ! 

Deftest in the maze, 

Nimble Harlequin ! 

Grim Snapdragon comes 
With his mimic ire, 

And his feast of plums 
Smothered in the fire. 

Oh, the days of mirth. 

And the night akin! 

Heap the Christmas hearth ; 

Hale the Yule-log in ! 

Clinton Scollard 


214 


A FOREST PATH IN WINTER 

Along this secret and forgotten road 

All depths and forest forms, above, below, 

Are plumed and draped and hillocked with the 
snow. 

A branch cracks now and then, and its soft load 
Drifts by me in a thin prismatic shower ; 

Else not a sound, but vistas bound and crossed 
With sheeted gleams and sharp blue shadows, 
frost, 

And utter silence. In his glittering power 
The master of mid-winter reveries 

Holds all things buried soft and strong and deep. 
The busy squirrel has his hidden lair ; 

And even the spirits of the stalwart trees 

Have crept into their utmost roots, and there, 
Upcoiled in the close earth, lie fast asleep. 

Archibald Lampman 


215 


WINTER ABROAD 


On blithesome frolics bent, the youthful swains, 
While every work of man is laid at rest, 

Fond o’er the river crowd, in various sport 
And revelry dissolved ; where mixing glad, 

Happiest of all the train, the raptured boy 
Lashes the whirling top. Or, where the Rhine 
Branched out in many a long canal extends, 

From every province swarming, void of care, 
Batavia rushes forth; and as they sweep, 

On sounding skates, a thousand different ways. 

In circling poise, swift as the winds, along, 

The then gay land is maddened all to joy. 

Nor less the northern courts, wide o’er the snow, 
Pour a new pomp. Eager, on rapid sleds, 

Their vigorous youth in bold contention wheel 
The long-resounding course. Meantime, to raise 
The manly strife, with highly blooming charms, 
Flushed by the season, Scandinavia’s dames, 

Or Russia’s buxom daughters, glow around. 

James Thomson 


216 


THE SLEIGH RIDE 


When all the world is robed in white, 
And merry night 

By moon and stars is rendered bright, 

And everywhere the sleighing bell 
Rings out to tell 

The tale that lovers love so well, 

With joy I capture pretty Flo, 

And off we go 

Across the glittering fields of snow ; 

Our sleigh just large enough for two 
Who want to woo, 

And keep unfrozen while they do, 

I place my arm, in comic haste, 

About her waist, 

And find her lips just to my taste. 

She shows no traces of alarm. 

For what’s the harm? 

Thus on we speed past cot and farm. 

Arthur Griscom 


21 7 


CHRISTMAS IN THE FOREST 


Softer than footfalls cushioned in the deep 
Moss of a dream, far Christmas revels creep 

Into this woodland heart, with chime and cheer 
And season- joy that peopled cities keep. 

Silent the yule-tide spirit of the wood ; 

Tis perfect, though, if only understood, 

For templed oak and sun-aspiring pine 
The Sovereign Giver gave his greatest good. 

No brighter burns the Birth-Star of the East 
Where altars blaze, and answer choir and priest, 
Than here, in world-redeeming solitude, 

She guides her Magi — Nature, Man and Beast. 

“Good will to men !” Ah, shepherds watching here 
Are brothers bred in hunger, thirst and fear — 
The gold and myrrh and incense offerings 
Souls meet to make, when hearts cannot be near. 

Lead on, O star, from God to his design, 

And light the snowy tapers of the pine ! 

Sing out, O angel voices, to the wood, 

And make your happy tidings hers and mine ! 

Aloysius Coll 


218 


SKATING SONG 


Moon so bright, 

Stars alight. 

Clouds a-dance, a-dance ; 

Snow of night, 

Fleecy white, 

Silver ice a-gleam, a-glance. 

High, hey, high, hey, 

Skimming the smooth, bright way ! 
High, hey, high, hey, 

Over the ice away! 

Cheeks so bright, 

Face alight, 

Heart a-dance, a-dance ; 

Eyes of night, 

Brow of white, 

Silver skates, a-gleam, a-glance. 

High, hey, high, hey, 

Skimming the smooth, bright way ! 
High, hey, high, hey, 

Over the ice away ! 

Cora Isabel Warburton 


219 


THE FUR KING 


My kingdom by the frozen sea, 

My love the Snow Queen shares with me ; 
Unchallenged I in simple fee 
Hold fast my royal fief. 

My runners scour each forest glade ; 

Stout hearts guard well my fort stockade ; 

I laugh at siege or escalade 

And rule a North-land chief. 

Then pledge me my lieges and lustily sing, 

While flare the back-logs and the pine-rafters ring — 
No laggard shall serve the bold Fur-trader King! 

A downy robe bedecks my Queen, 

Thick-set with gems whose fulgent sheen 
Outshines the flash of rapier keen 
And pales the Winter moon. 

No ermine mantle soft I wear: 

For me the robe of royal bear — 

My shaggy subjects yield with care 

A poll-tax paid eftsoon. 

220 


THE FUR KING 


221 


When Winter’s icy grip is freed, 

And, with the rush of frantic steed, 

The river roars with headlong speed, 
Tossing its foam-flecked mane; 

’Mid breaking ice-floes’ thund’rous crash, 
Plunging its way with reckless dash — 
Tearing its sides with many a gash, 

And moaning in its pain: 

When, resting from its heaving throes, 
Drunk with its draught of melting snows. 
Sullen and calm the river flows, 

I launch my royal barge. 

Its bellied birch with peltry stored — 

A prince’s ransom is on board — 

Sweeps on its way, majestic, toward 
The river’s far decharge. 

With chansons gay my dark-skinned crew 
Their paddles swing with lusty thew. 

Till bursts within our eager view 
The loved flag fluttering 

Its lettered folds above the Fort, 

Whence pours from gate and sally-port 
A motley crowd of every sort 
Joyously welcoming! 


222 


THE FUR KING 


We gather round the roaring fire, 

Forgetful of the perils dire 
Safe passed, while laugh and jest mount higher 
In friendly rivalry. 

And hands are clasped, and glasses clink, 

And toasts are pledged with nod and wink — 

The dancing lights in chorus blink 
And join the revelry. 

Then pledge me my lieges and lustily sing, 

While flare the back-logs and the pine-rafters ring — 
No laggard shall serve the bold Fur-trader King! 

Samuel M. Baylis 


THE NORTHERN SEAS 


Up, up ! let us a voyage take ; 

Why sit we here at ease? 

Find us a vessel tight and snug, 

Bound for the Northern Seas ! 

I long to see the Northern Lights, 

With their rushing splendors, fly 

Like living things, with flaming wings. 
Wide o’er the wondrous sky. 

I long to see those icebergs vast, 

With heads all crowned with snow ; 

Whose green roots sleep in the awful deep, 
Two hundred fathoms low. 

I long to hear the thundering crash 
Of their terrific fall; 

And the echoes from a thousand cliffs, 
Like lonely voices call. 

There shall we see the fierce white bear, 
The sleepy seals aground, 

And the spouting whales that to and fro 
Sail with a dreary sound. 

223 


224 


THE NORTHERN SEAS 


There may we tread on depths of ice, 
That the hairy mammoth hide; 

Perfect as when, in times of old, 

The mighty creature died. 

And while the unsetting sun shines on 
Through the still heaven's deep blue, 

We’ll traverse the azure waves, the herds 
Of the dread sea-horse to view. 

We’ll pass the shores of solemn pine, 
Where wolves and black bears prowl, 

And away to the rocky isles of mist 
To rouse the northern fowl. 

Up there shall start ten thousand wings, 
With a rushing, whistling din ; 

Up shall the auk and fumar start, — 

All but the fat penguin. 

And there, in the wastes of the silent sky, 
With the silent earth below, 

We shall see far off to his lonely rock 
The lonely eagle go. 

Then softly, softly till we tread 
By island streams, to see 

Where the pelican of the silent North 
Sits there all silently. 


William Howitt 


CANADIAN WINTER SONG 


I sing you a song of Canadian Winter ; 

It is set to the tune of the jingling bells; 

And its chorus hangs neither on speaker nor printer, 
But free in the bosom its melody swells. 

Its step is the stride of the hardy snow-shoer, 

Its rhythm the sigh of the breeze through the 
pine, 

And never Canadian suitor or wooer 

Cared more for his cause than I covet for mine ! 

We have built you, O brothers, a Castle of Bright- 
ness ; 

The stones were ne'er quarried, yet noble they 
rise! 

Its turrets and keep stand in beautiful whiteness, 
Its portals are open — it dreads no surprise! 

O’er each icy turret the banners are streaming, 

Its panels emblazon St. Lawrence’ clear wave, 
And we walk or we glide ’mid the sparkling and 
gleaming 

Of diamonds as bright as Golconda e’er gave ! 

They wrong us who say that our winters are 
dreary — 

That happiness flies to some home in the South ! — 

Of our snow-lighted joys there are none of us weary, 

225 


226 


CANADIAN WINTER SONG 


E’en Boreas blows with a smile on his mouth ! 

Then come to our winter-sports! Come in your 
gladness, 

And bring with you kindness like that you shall 
meet, 

And learn to retreat from the presence of sadness 

To Canada’s Winter, and Ice-Palace sweet ! 

Oh, come from the West, where the long grassy 
billows 

Are far as the sunset, and wide as the sea! 

Oh, come from the South, where the sick on their 
pillows 

Are dreaming of coolness, and gladness, and glee ! 

Come, buckle the snow-shoe, and mount the tobog- 
gan. 

Come, clamber the mountain, and shoot down its 
side; 

And own, if you will, there’s a long catalogue in 
The sports of our Winter, and Carnival-tide ! 

The gleam of the moon on each battlement lingers, 
And angle and arch scatter stars in a shower ; 

And the blushing Aurora with fair rosy fingers 
Is painting carnation on turret and tower. 

The lights are all glancing on groups that are flitting 
Through hall and through portal, with laughter 
and song, — 


CANADIAN WINTER SONG 


227 


And the fair icy Castle is royally sitting — 

The theme of the Bard, the delight of the throng. 

You never saw castle so dainty and daring, — 

Its walls so transparent, its turrets so bright; — 
Nor yet does it lack, in its beautiful bearing, 

Within its broad halls, for fair lady and knight! 
It rose as if fashioned by fairy puissance, 

It flashes in sunlight, and towers ’mid the storm ; 
It never grows old in our sweet reminiscence — 
The Castle that warms us — yet never was warm ! 

We’ll light up the life of the weak and the ailing. 
With the clear frosty air of our sunshiny days; 
The sleigh-bells and snow-shoes shall be more pre- 
vailing 

Than all the proud antidote science conveys! 
We’ll bring back the bloom to the cheek that is 
faded, 

And send the new blood coursing warm through 
the veins; 

The heart that is saddened, the mind that is jaded, 
Shall find a relief where our Winter-time reigns ! 

When summer, and sunshine, and gladness and glory 
Are flooding the earth, and the air, and the sea, 
Our sources of happiness come like a story 

To which we but listen, and laugh in our glee : — 


228 


CANADIAN WINTER SONG 


But winter demands we should make our enjoyment 
In converse and friendship with all, as we can ; 
We are what we make ourselves; winter employ- 
ment 

Is making acquaintance with mind and with man ! 

And, lovers and friends, I would rather your faces 
Were blooming in smiles for affection to see, 
Than all the fine flowers with their colors and 
graces, 

That grow in the garden, or hang from the tree! 
Then let the short summer be lengthened out longer, 
And longer again, till it takes in the year ! 

The sunshine of love in the heart growing stronger — 
The blossoms of kindness, that never grow sere ! 

Then out with the sleigh-robes, and rein up the 
horses ! 

And let the snow batter from hoof and from 
heel ! — 

Command the toboggan, and vie with the forces 
Of nature, in swiftness — no fear do we feel ! 
With snow-shoes, and sledges, and skates, and good 
nature, — 

A smile in the morning, a welcome at night, 

We value our winter, in every loved feature — 

The high noon of friendship, the prime of delight ! 

William Wye Smith 


A SKI CHANTY 


The sky is blue, the snow lies deep, 

The air is cold and still. 

From snow-capped crags the white slopes sweep 
In dimples down the hill: 

Then ho ! for the ski that runs so fleet, 

The ski sticks twain, the fast’ning neat. 

Then ho! for the twinkling of the feet, 

As they scud thro’ the drift, so smooth, so 
swift — 

The gods be thanked for such a gift — 

The ski ! 

Tho* the snow is soft and you sink to your knees, 
And you feel your limbs ready to drop, 

And your skis trip up in the roots of the trees, 

And you murmur “How far to the top? ,, 

Though you stagger and flounder and slither 
and lunge, 

And into a snow-drift head-foremost you plunge 
Till you look like a snow-man and drip like a 
sponge ; 

Yet the climb is soon done, soon you’ll lunch 
in the sun, 

And smile at the thought of the downward 
run — 

On your ski. 

229 


230 


A SKI CHANTY 


Then with easy grace and well-balanced pose 
A-down the slopes you skim, 

While the frost lays siege to the tip of your nose 
And your eyes begin to brim ; 

Yet faster you fly, and faster still, 

Merrily, merrily, down the hill; 

And what's the odds if you do get a spill — 
With a swoop and a swerve and a swing and 
a curve 

You'll very soon learn, if you've the nerve, — 
To ski. 


J. Swinburne 


ON TO CUBE! 


Listen to the wind, fellows ; 

Will you let him taunt you so? 

He shall never find, fellows, 

That, however wild he blow, 

We will meekly sit and shiver 
Here before a smouldering fire. 

See the swirling snow, fellows. 

Hear it rattle on the pane; 

Blow it high or low, fellows, 

It shall drift and swirl in vain; 

We will never sit and shiver 
Here before a smouldering fire. 

Then wake up, boy, and take your skis, 
And leave your mimic smouldering fire, 
And the novel on your knees, 

And your lazy little brier. 

Fasten on your rawhide thongs, 

And roll your blanket on your back, — 

And it’s out in the wind, and over the drifts, 
And into the woods where the soft snow sifts, 
With a merry heart and a well-filled pack, 
And a cider jug of jolly songs ; 

In spite of wind, in spite of snow, 

To Cube, with a puff, and a hey-hi-ho ! 

231 


232 


ON TO CUBE! 


Camp-fire, moonlight, crunching snow, — 
Wake up, boy, and let us go ! 

Wake up, boy, and face the bite 
Of the boisterous winter wind; 

Though your upper lip be white 
With the hoar frost, and behind 
Half your muffler whips and whisks. 

You will feel your blood a-tingling, 

And among the birches creaking 
You will find what you are seeking. 

Where the icicles fall jingling 
And the light-foot rabbit frisks ; 

So it's on, in spite of wind and snow, 

To Cube, with a puff, and a hey-hi-ho ! 

Camp-fire, moonlight, crunching snow — 
Lively, boy, and let us go ! 

Franklin McDuffee 


THE WHITE EVENING 


On hills, beneath the steely skies, 

The wind-tossed forests rock and roar: 

Along the river’s ringing shore 
Homeward the skimming skater flies. 

On windy meads of icy brakes, 

Where, sheathed in sleet, the hawtree stands, 
The moon looks down on glistening lands, 

Where with the cold each bramble shakes. 

Last night the sleet made white the world : 

All day the wind moaned in the pines : 

Now like a wolf, that whines and whines. 

Like some wild wolf its hate is hurled 

Against the hut upon the wold, 

And the one willow by the stream: 

Where, huddled, in the moon’s chill gleam. 

The houseless hare leaps through the cold. 

The moon sinks low, the thin new moon, 

And with it, like a bit of spar, 

Sinks down the large white evening-star, 

Beneath which earth seems crystal-hewn. 

233 


234 


THE WHITE EVENING 


Slim o'er the tree-tops, weighed with white, 

The country church’s spire doth swell, 

A scintillating icicle; 

While fitfully the village light 

Stabs, stains with sallow stars the dark : 
Homeward the creaking wagons strain: 

The smithy glares : the tavern’s vane 
Points northward in its ghostly sark. 

And from the north, with stinging lash. 

Driving his herds of snow and sleet. 

Upon his steed of wind, whose feet 
Hurl through the iron woods and crash. 

Along the hills, with blow on blow, 

The tempest sweeps ; before his shout 
The moon and stars are blotted out. 

And fold on fold rolls down the snow. 

Madison Cawein 


THE SPIRIT OF THE CARNIVAL 


Fling out the flaunting banners, 

The crimson roses fling, 

Make way, make way, Signori, 

For merriment is king! 

Fly faster, maddened horses, 
Through din of trumpet loud, 
Crash down the dusty Corso, 
Cheered by the frantic crowd. 

Sweep onward, gaudy pageant, 

In wild, uproarious glee, 

Dark goblnis, elves fantastic, 

Strange shapes from land and sea, 
Wave high the flaming torches ! 

Clang loud the brazen bells ! 

The great enchanter, Carnival, 

Hath Rome within his spells. 

Weary of heat and clamor, 

A young Italian lay 
Beneath the ilex shadow 

When closed the burning day, 
Faint as his faded garlands 
His drowsy eyelids seem, 

The Spirit of the Carnival 
Is calling in his dream. 

235 


236 THE SPIRIT OF THE CARNIVAL 


“Awake, oh Youth! Arouse thee, 
And follow where I lead, 

I know thine ardent nature, 

Thy truth of word and deed ; 
Leave all the gilded folly, 

The childish pranks and play, 
This motley crowd of mummers 
Fits not thy holiday. 


Arise! I, too, have lingered 
To laugh and jest awhile, 

But as a king may pause to greet 
A wilful beauty’s smile, 

Yet guardeth ever in his heart 
An image pure and fair, 

And hastening homewards to his Queen 
Finds life and love are there. 


So follow, follow where I lead 
Across the western sea, 

There shalt thou learn thy manhood’s might 
From farce and folly free.” 

The youth sighed in his sleep, — his soul 
Obeyed the strange command, 

The great Enchanter, Carnival, 

Still led him by the hand ; 


THE SPIRIT OF THE CARNIVAL 237 


And soon the groves of olives 
Dissolve in twilight gray, 

The dim, blue shores of Italy 
Have faded far away, 

Fresh draughts of life inhaling 
Where northern breezes blow, 
A city lies before him, — 

The City of the Snow. 


Like jewels brightly burning 
Upon a silver band 
Her festal fires are flaming 
Across the moonlit land, 

He sees her stately spires, 

Her towers traced in light, 

He hears the sleighbells ringing 
Sweet music through the night. 


“Behold !” the Enchanter whispered, 
“Gaze on and thou shalt see 
Why Canada my kingdom, 

My chosen home should be, 

Here all my sports and merriment 
To noble ends allied, 

Teach manly strength and fortitude, 
A nation’s truest pride.” 


238 THE SPIRIT OF THE CARNIVAL 

The people keep high festival ! 

The clear, cold air like wine 
Quickens each pulse to bounding glee, 
Bright eyes with gladness shine, 

With merry laughter following fast 
From summits far and nigh, 

White winged petrels of the snow, 

The swift toboggans fly. 


Gaze on, oh dreamer ! Thou shalt see 
A fairy palace rise, 

Seeming of mist and moonbeams born, 
Or poet’s fantasies, 

Within it throbs a soul of fire 
That glows through every part, 
Softly as shines the light of love 
Within a maiden’s heart. 


A moment, and the magic scene 
Grows strangely bright as day, 

To arms ! the foeman storms the gate, — 
Oh, guard it while ye may ! 

Hurrah ! the rockets leap aloft, 

The crimson watch-fires flare, — 

A rainbow shower of golden stars 
Breaks into glory there! 


THE SPIRIT OF THE CARNIVAL 


Afar on yonder mountain side 
A chain of living light! 

Each link a son of Canada 
With torch the blazes bright, — 
A jewelled Order proudly flung 
On old Mount Royal’s breast, 
A starry circlet from the skies 
Dropped on his snowy crest. 


Then lights and city faded, 

And the dreamer woke at last, — 
Round him hung the old world languor, 
Faint with memories of the past, 

But his spirit glowed within him 
And he felt the careless throng, 

Lived and wrought in earnest fashion, 
Toil or pastime, brave and strong. 


So may faint hearts ever gather 
From Canadian sports and play, 
Something of the force that, working, 
Hewed the forest, cleared the way. 
Strong the roots and wide the branches 
While the leaves dance in the sun, 
And the pleasure turns to glory 

When the game is fought, and won ! 


240 THE SPIRIT OF THE CARNIVAL 


Now Carnival no longer wears 
The bells as Fancy’s fool, 

He is a king whose subjects free 
Are loyal to his rule; 

Each merry heart beats true and fast 
And knows amidst his play, 

Tomorrow he can meet the foe, 

Who tries his strength today. 

Then guard it well, fair Canada, 

Thy Festival of Snow, 

Proving old Winter, stern and grim, 

Thy friend and not thy foe ; 

And may thy sons build steadfastly 
A Nation great and free, 

Whose vast foundations stronger grow 
From mighty sea to sea. 

Long may Canadians bear thy name 
In unity and pride, 

Their progress, like thy rushing streams, 

Roll a resistless tide, 

Their hearts be tender as the flowers 
That o’er thy valleys grow, 

Their courage rugged as thy frost 
When winds of winter blow, — 

Their honour cloudless as thy skies, 

And stainless as thy snow! 

Lily Alice Lefevre 


THE SKATER’S SONG 


Away on the glist’ning plain we go, 

With our steely feet so bright; 

Away ! for the north winds keenly blow, 

And winter’s out to-night! 

With the stirring shout of the joyous rout 
To the ice-bound stream we hie; 

On the river’s breast, where snow-flakes rest, 
We’ll merrily onward fly! 

Our fires flame high; by their midnight glare 
We will wheel our way along, 

And the white woods dim, and the frosty air, 
Shall ring with the skater’s song. 

With a crew as bold as ever was told 
For the wild and daring deed, 

What can stay our flight by the fire’s red light, 
As we move with lightning speed? 

We heed not the blast who are flying fast 
As deer o’er the Lapland snow, 

When the cold moon shines on snow-clad pines, 

And wintry breezes blow. 

241 


242 THE SKATER’S SONG 

The cheerful hearth, in the hall of mirth, 

We have gladly left behind ; 

For a thrilling song is borne along 
On the free and stormy wind. 

Our hearts beating warm, we’ll laugh at the storm 
When it comes in a fearful rage, 

“While, with many a wheel on the ringing steel, 

A riotous game we’ll wage.” 

By the starry light of a frosty night 
We trace our onward way ; 

While on the ground with a splintering sound 
The frost goes forth at play. 


Anonymous 


WINTER RECALLED 


Life is not all for effort ; there are hours 
When fancy breaks from the exacting will, 

And rebel thought takes schoolboy's holiday, 
Rejoicing in its idle strength. Tis then, 

And only at such moments, that we know 
The treasure of hours gone — scenes once beheld, 
Sweet voices and words bright and beautiful, 
Impetuous deeds that woke the God within us, 

The loveliness of forms and thoughts and colours, 
A moment marked and then as soon forgotten, 
These things are ever near us, laid away, 

Hidden and waiting the appropriate times, 

In the quiet garner-house of memory. 

There in the silent unaccounted depth, 

Beneath the heated strainage and the rush, 

That teem the noisy surface of the hours, 

All things that ever touched us are stored up, 
Growing more mellow like sealed wine with age; 
We thought them dead, and they are but asleep. 

In moments when the heart is most at rest 
And least expectant, from the luminous doors, 

And sacred dwelling-place of things unfeared, 

They issue forth, and we who never knew 
Till then how potent and how real they were, 

Take them, and wonder, and so bless the hour. 

243 


244 


WINTER RECALLED 


Such gifts are sweetest when unsought. To me, 
As I was loitering lately in my dreams, 

Passing from one remembrance to another, 

Like him who reads upon an outstretched map, 

Content and idly happy, there rose up 

Out of that magic well-stored picture house, 

No dream, rather a thing most keenly real, 

The memory of a moment, when with feet 
Arrested and spell-bound, and captured eyes, 
Made wide with joy and wonder, I beheld 
The spaces of a white and wintry land 
Swept with the fire of sunset, all its width, 

Vale, forest, town and misty eminence, 

A miracle of colour and of beauty. 


I had walked out, as I remember now, 

With covered ears, for the bright air was keen, 

To southward up the gleaming snow-packed fields, 
With the snowshoer’s long rejoicing stride, 
Marching at ease. It was a radiant day 
In February, the month of the great struggle 
Twixt sun and frost, when with advancing spears, 
The glittering golden vanguard of the spring 
Holds the broad winter's yet unbroken rear 
In long-closed wavering contest. Thin pale threads 
Like streaks of ash across the far-off blue 
Were drawn, nor seemed to move. A brooding 
silence 


WINTER RECALLED 


245 


Kept all the land, a stillness as of sleep ; 

But in the east the gray and motionless woods, 
Watching the great sun’s fiery slow decline, 

Grew deep with gold. To westward all was silver. 
An hour had passed above me ; I had reached 
The loftiest level of the snow-piled fields. 
Clear-eyed, but unobservant, noting not 
That all the plain beneath me and the hills 
Took on a change of colour splendid, gradual, 
Leaving no spot the same ; not that the sun 
Now like a fiery torrent overflamed 
The great line of the west. Ere yet I turned 
With long stride homeward, being heated 
With the loose swinging motion, weary too, 

Nor uninclined to rest, a buried fence, 

Whose topmost log just shouldered from the snow, 
Made me a seat, and thence with heated cheeks, 
Grazed by the north wind’s edge of stinging ice, 

I looked far out upon the snow-bound waste, 

The lifting hills and intersecting forests, 

The scarce marked courses of the buried streams, 
And as I looked lost memory of the frost, 
Transfixed with wonder, overborne with joy. 

I saw them in their silence and their beauty, 

Swept by the sunset’s rapid hand of fire, 

Sudden, mysterious, every moment deepening 
To some new majesty of rose or flame. 

The whole broad west was like a molten sea 


246 


WINTER RECALLED 


Of crimson. In the north the light-lined hills 
Were veiled far off as with a mist of rose 
Wondrous and soft. Along the darkening east 
The gold of all the forests slowly changed 
To purple. In the valley far before me, 

Low sunk in sapphire shadows, from its hills, 
Softer and lovelier than an opening flower, 
Uprose a city with its sun-touched towers, 

A bunch of amethysts. 


Like one spell-bound 

Caught in the presence of some god, I stood, 

Nor felt the keen wind and the deadly air, 

But watched the sun go down, and watched the gold 
Fade from the town and the withdrawing hills, 
Their westward shapes athwart the dusky red 
Freeze into sapphire, saw the arc of rose 
Rise ever higher in the violet east, 

Above the forefront of the uprearing night 
Remorsefully soft and sweet. Then I awoke 
As from a dream, and from my shoulders shook 
The warning chill, till then unfelt, unfeared. 

Archibald Lampman 


WINTER SPORTS 


Slow sinks the golden sun behind the woods, 

The shivering woods of winter. The red flush, 
That blooms along the cloud-land world above, 
Tinting the floating clouds with hues of rose, 

Rests on the naked woods, and gilds their tops. 

The chestnut groves, that fringe the upland slopes, 
And willows light that skirt the frozen stream, 
Black alders springing from the oozy marsh, 

And the lithe silver poplars, slim and tall, 

Touch’d by the slanting beam, are fair to see. 

Deep lies the snow in many a drifted heap 
O’er turfy mounds beneath the lifeless woods. 

Their rugged boles are sprinkled with the flakes, 
Or crusted o’er with adamantine ice, 

That like a silver armor clasps them round ; 

Each leafless twig and sapless spray is gemm’d 
With jewels crystalline, that shift and shine 
And twinkle as the murmuring breeze sweeps by. 
’Tis like some grotto in enchanted land, 

When tricksy elves and fairies hold their court 
And in their frolic merriment adorn 
The haunted precincts with ice jewelry, 

Twining their wreaths of pearl and amethyst 
And crystal garlands to bedeck the haunt. 

Mute lies the shining river in its bed, 

And mute the glistening lake outspreads its sheet. 
247 


248 


WINTER SPORTS 


The foamy waterfall of summer-time 

That down the mossy rocks its torrent pour’d, 

Freshing the drooping ferns and rosy blooms, 

Now grim in icy death, rests motionless, 

The white cascade that turn’d the miller’s wheel 
And with its churning foam made endless din, 

Fix’d by the frost’s enchantment, moves no more. 

The white, untrampled fields immense extend 
Their crested slopes to th’ horizon’s edge, 

Trod by no cropping herd or browsing flock, 
Lifeless save when the woodman’s weary team, 
Laden with forest spoil, ploughs thro’ the waste. 

The piping quail no longer skims the space, 

Nor comes the limping hare or prowling fox, 

For all have vanish’d into hemlock woods. 

But down the country road, with hedges lin’d, 
The farmer opes the way with cumbrous sledge ; 
And there the merry sleighs, with jingling bells, 
And prancing team, and song and laughter loud, 
Cheer with their jocund life the barren scene. 
Though shapeless drifts beset the cottage home, 
And white on roof and gable rests the snow 
Yet youthful faces beam around the hearth, 

And merry jests prolong the winter night, 

And viol’s tinkle, and the dancers’ feet. 

Isaac McLellan 


WINTER 

Winter was nor unkind because uncouth, 

His prisoned time made me a closer guest 
And gave thy graciousness a warmer zest, 

Biting all else with keen and angry tooth : 

And bravelier the triumphant blood of youth 
Mantling thy cheek its happy home possest, 

And sterner sport by day put strength to test, 

And custom's feast at night gave tongue to truth. 

Or say, hath flaunting summer a device 
To match our midnight revelry that rang 
With steel and flame along the snow-girt ice? 

Or when we harked to nightingales that sang 
On dewy eves in spring, did they entice 
To gentler love than winter's icy fang? 

Robert Bridges 


249 















INDEX OF TITLES 

PAGE 

A Curler’s Elegy Burns 36 

A Forest Path in Winter Lampman 215 

A Night on the Skating Rink Martin 201 

A Northern Trapper’s Trail Weldon 175 

A Northern Winter’s Welcome Turner 8 

A Skater’s Valentine Guiterman 90 

A Skating Song Potter 189 

A Ski Chanty Swinburne 229 

A Snow-Shoe Tramp Harlowe 19 

A Song of the Ski Anonymous 212 

A Winter Night Burns 83 

A Winter Ride Lowell 16 

A Winter Song for the Sleigh Traill 143 

All Hail to a Night Lightall 135 

Bilin’ Sap Hawkes 147 

Canadian Winter Song Smith 225 

Christmas in the Forest Coll 218 

Christmas in the Olden Time Scott 145 

Coasting Down the Hill Carleton 76 

Country Sleighing Stedman 23 

Curling Song Macleod 79 

Curling Song Duncan 1 14 

Dartmouth’s Winter Camps Anonymous 27 

From the “Luggie” Gray 133 

Gather Round, All Ye Good men and True — Baylis 199 

Hanover Winter Song Hovey 32 

Hockey Anonymous 42 

Ice-fishing in Winter - Keene 40 

Jingle Bells Anonymous 150 

Lift the Sled Along Underhill 3 

Lost Spirits Gandy 207 

Men of the High North Service 14 

Montreal Carnival Sports Martin 158 

Moose-Hunting in Winter McLellan 204 


252 INDEX OF TITLES 

PAGE 

O'er Crackling Ice Johnson 97 

Of Skating Kernahan 117 

On to Cube McDuffee 231 

Over the Ice Sandys 194 

Pickerel-Fishing Through the Ice McLellan 182 

She Skates Alone Mighels 113 

Ships of the North Allison 101 

Skaters’ Song at Night Fiske 94 

Skater and Wolves Clarke 60 

Skating Percival 53 

Skating Stuart 81 

Skating Wordsworth 156 

Skating Hath Charms Anonymous 185 

Skating Song Furness 144 

Skating Song Griscom 92 

Skating Song Rogers 99 

Skating Song Warburton 219 

Ski-Song of the Braemar Postman Anonymous 200 

Skis Eaton 17 

Sleighing Painter 62 

Sleigh-Ride Song Vinton 70 

Snow Shoe Tramp Anonymous 65 

Snowshoeing Song Weir 128 

Song for Winter Sherman 74 

Songs of the Canadian Winter Liston 136 

Song of the Chamois Hunter Read 21 

Tally-Ho Baylis 10 

Teaching a Girl to Skate Hall no 

That Hockey Game Potter 126 

The Birth of the Snowshoe Baylis 49 

The Channel-Stane Usher 38 

The Christmas Hunter Scollard 165 

The Clipper Sled Sabin 85 

The Daughter of the Snow Cawein 176 

The Fur King Baylis 220 

The Gude Gaun Game o’ Curling Sidey 44 

The Hoodoo Riley 31 

The Hunters Seton 46 

The Iceboat Bailey 37 

The Jolly Curlers Hogg 61 

The Lady of Snows Buzzard 192 

The Lost Trail Pollock 63 


INDEX OF TITLES 


253 

PAGE 

The Northern Seas Howitt 223 

The Old Pine Tree Drummond 121 

The Race at Petit Cote Baubie 167 

The Scene Lends Its Aid Baynes 33 

The Shooting of the Moose Roberts 191 

The Skaiter’s March Dibdin 56 

The Skater Roberts 25 

The Skater Stein 87 

The Skater Belle Peck 69 

The Skaters Leach 179 

The Skaters Rogers 141 

The Skater’s Song Anonymous 241 

The Skater’s Song Peabody 95 

The Ski-Journey Bjornson 152 

The Ski-Runner Anonymous 91 

The Sleigh Ride Griscom 217 

The Snow-Shoe Trail Pennypacker 102 

The Snowshoer Roberts in 

The Snowshoer’s Song Doyle 98 

The Spirit of the Carnival Lefevre 235 

The Voyageur Drummond 130 

The Walker of the Snow Shanly 71 

The White Evening Cawein 233 

The Winter Camp Roberts 12 

The Winter Camp Fire Shoshone 58 

The Winter Hunters McLellan 55 

The Winter Scene Carman 196 

The Wolf Hunt Coburn 118 

The Yule-Log Scollard 214 

Toboggan Song Fiske 88 

To My Hockey Stick Friedlaender 67 

Trackin’ Rabbits Anonymous 180 

Twelfth Night Song Scollard 75 

White Worlds Gandy 186 

Winter Bridges 249 

Winter Gale vi 

Winter Abroad Thomson 216 

Winter in Canada Leprohon 209 

Winter Nights Campion 134 

Winter Nocturne Trotter 125 

Winter Recalled Lampman 243 

Winter Speeding Fiske 173 


254 


INDEX OF TITLES 


PAGE 

Winter Sports McLellan 247 

Wintertime Shakespeare 30 

Winter Uplands Lampman 124 

With Good Steel Ringing Kernahan 34 

Wolverine Winter Sifton 187 


FIRST LINE INDEX 


A King, I ween, it must have been 

A’ nicht it was freezin’, a’ nicht I was sneezin’ 

A pale new moon hung in the western sky 

Above the frozen floods 

Above the mountain, bleak and bare 

Above you hangs a molten-copper sun 

Ah! the tang o’ the snell hill air 

All day through woodland stillnesses 

All hail to a night when the stars 

Along the ice I see her fly 

Along this secret and forgotten road 

And in the frosty season when the sun 

As swift and light as a bird in flight 

Away, away o’er the glittering snow 

Away! away! our fires stream bright 

Away on the glist’ning plain we go 

Beneath her skates the curved steel bars 

Brightly beams the moon to-night 

Cheer up, my lads, for auld John Frost 

Come to the moonlit lake 

Dashing thro* the snow 

Dere’s somet’ing stirrin* ma blood to-night 

Did you ever saw ma* ponay 

Down the St. Lawrence 

Far in the West the dead day’s pyre 

Fling out the flaunting banners 

Fresh the breeze, the morning bright 

Ghostly, ethereal, mystical form ! 

Hale the Yule-log in! 

Have you ever stooped in the frosty morn 

Heaped be the fagots high 

Hilloo, hilloo, hilloo, hilloo! 

Ho, a song by the fire! 

Ho! Sing of your trout 


PAGE 

212 


79 
1 7 
179 


58 

91 

200 

191 


135 

69 


215 

156 


92 

19 

95 

242 

87 

62 


44 

81 

150 

130 

167 

136 

141 

235 


144 

192 

214 

175 

75 

128 

32 

40 


FIRST LINE INDEX 


256 


How they go hurrying 

Hurrah for the forest 

Hurrah for the Ski 

I sing you a song of Canadian Winter 

I sing you a song to-night, my lads 

Life is not all for effort 

Light graceful clouds across the sky 

Like cameos carved on a purple sky 

“Listen, my child,” said the old pine tree 

Listen to the wind, fellows 

Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing 

Moon so bright 

Mounted on snow-shoes, with their food 

My glad feet shod with the glittering steel 

My Kingdom by the frozen sea 

Nay, tell me not that with shivering fear 

Now underneath the ice the Luggie growls 

Now winter fills the world with snow 

Now winter nights enlarge 

O’er crackling ice 

Of a’ the games that e’er I saw 

Oh, brave may be those bands, perchance 

Oh, for the winters that used to be! 

Oh, there’s nothing in all the world so fine 

Old Hiram settled it at last 

On blithesome frolics bent, the youthful swains.... 

On Christmas-eve the bells were rung 

On hills, beneath the starry skies 

Our rink is in motion 

Out on the open, wind-swept spaces 

Over the hills on a winter’s morn 

Over the ice with a curving swing 

Owned a pair o’ skates onc’t 

Parched ’mid the dust of the hot summer’s blue.... 

Push back the tables, and from the stables 

She skates alone, and swift as swallows 

She’s just at my back 

Slow sinks the golden sun behind the woods 

So cold was the night 

Softer than footfalls cushioned in the deep 

Speed on, speed on, good Master! 

Swifter the flight! Far, far and high 


PAGE 

152 

143 

8 

225 

10 

243 

101 

186 

121 

231 

14 

219 
55 

25 

220 
209 

133 
74 

134 
97 
61 
21 
85 

no 


I7 i 

216 


145 

233 

201 

102 

n8 

194 

31 

199 

23 

113 

117 

247 

18s 

218 

70 

60 


FIRST LINE INDEX 


257 


The chickadee cam in the morning 

The fleecy flakes come failin’ down 

The frost that stings like fire 

The Frost King sat on a throne of snow 

The Gnomes abound on mountains 

The Music o’ the year is hush’d 

The rutted roads are all like iron 

The scene lends its aid 

The silver moon is beaming 

The sky is blue, the snow lies deep 

The sound of the bugle over the hill 

The walls of log are thick and stout 

The White Owl sits on a low snow-drift 

There is a thing, so fair, so free 

There’s a glory in the speeding of a horse 

Through the panther’s footprints show 

This snell and frosty morning 

Tighten the toque, and girdle the sash 

Time the Red-man had dominion 

Time’s up! The season starting next October 

To-night, how crisp the air 

Under the moon and the stars 

Up, curlers, up! oor freen* John Frost 

Up! Up! Let us a voyage take 

Up! Up! the morn is breaking... 

We speed o’er the star-lighted mirror along 

What did Winter mutter? 

What if the air has a nipping tooth? 

What is that noise that rings out clear 

When all the world is robed in white 

When biting Boreas, fell and doure.. 

When glass-like glints the cracking ice 

When icicles hang by the wall . 

When the wan white moon in the skies feels chilly. . 
When the winter snow-fall lies heavy and deep.... 

When we’re crowdin’ to the fireside 

When Winter muffles up his cloak 

When you hack a fellow’s shin 

Where the rafters of the world-roof fade 

While the drizzle falls on the slimy pavement 

Whisper a song as we glide, glide, along 

Who shall declare the joy of running 


PAGE 

187 

180 

124 

158 

207 

114 

196 

33 

70 

229 

189 

12 

46 


37 

76 

176 

5<> 

98 


49 

67 

88 


in 

38 

223 

65 

53 

vi 


90 

126 

217 

83 

94 

30 

34 

204 

27 

36 

42 

3 

63 

99 

16 


258 FIRST LINE INDEX 

PAGE 

Wide o’er the lakes transparent plain 182 

Winter was not unkind because uncouth 249 

With blare of horn and haloo 165 

With me is revelry and light 125 

You boys all know how in the airly spring 147 





























































































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